


Steam Rising

by r_vess



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:14:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 64,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26027791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_vess/pseuds/r_vess
Summary: Katara and Zuko bridge the gap between their elements. Loss will lead to life.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 72
Kudos: 175





	1. Chapter 1

#  Part 1: Chapter 1

* * *

“You may have the others fooled, but not me,” Katara said as she leaned against the doorframe to Zuko’s room in the Eastern Air Temple. 

Zuko sat up, startled. The waterbender had appeared without warning. “I don’t get it. The others seem like they’ve accepted me into the gang. Why won’t you trust me?” His heart rate sped as his stomach twisted into knots.

“I was the first one to trust you, remember? Back in the catacombs in Ba Sing Se,” she snapped. Zuko could picture that moment easily. The memory had often come to him as he had lain awake in his bed in the Fire Lord’s palace when he had returned home. She had blamed his nation for her mother’s death, just as he blamed it for his own mother’s disappearance. But just as she had begun to see him, the real him, he had thrown it all away.  _ And for what? Honor? _ he thought to himself bitterly. 

“Katara, I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve any of that.” Zuko’s voice felt strained in his throat. 

“You and I both know you’ve struggled with doing the right thing. But if I think for one second you might slip up again or do anything to hurt Aang, I will not hesitate.” Katara stared down at the Fire Nation boy. He looked so hurt, so wounded, but she knew it could only be an act. People didn’t change so drastically. This boy was only a facade of the real Fire Nation prince, who would return to try to capture or hurt Aang. If her friends let down their guards around him, she would have to watch him extra closely. 

Zuko opened his mouth to speak, but Katara turned and left. He dropped his head into his hands. “Why am I so bad at being good?” he groaned. 

. . . . .

The next morning after breakfast, Katara sat with Toph on a boulder to watch Zuko teach Aang firebending. 

“Firebending is all about the breath,” she heard him say. She turned to Toph. 

“After all we went through, how can you trust him?” she asked. 

Toph faced straight ahead, her gray eyes unfocused. She blew a strand of hair from her face. 

“I can tell when people are lying, remember?” Toph pointed to Zuko showing Aang how to create a small fireball. “Zuko isn’t lying about wanting to help.” She opened a bag of fire flakes and popped some into her mouth. 

Katara scowled. She looked back at Zuko, watching him readjust Aang’s stance. “Well, couldn’t he have been brainwashed? Like Jet.”

Toph shrugged and spoke with her mouth full. “Sure, it’s possible. But I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Katara bristled at Toph’s ambivalence. 

“Because, sugar queen,” Toph said. “You haven’t talked to his uncle like I have. He’s been struggling for a long time. People can change for the better.”

Aang made a perfect fireball and cheered. “Did you see that, Katara?” he called across the temple floor. 

“Yeah, that was great, Aang!” Katara flashed a fake smile and hoped the airbender didn’t notice her unease. 

“Who would have thought Zuko would be such a great teacher!” Aang said as he continued punching to create small fireballs. 

“Hey, what’s all the noise?” Sokka asked as he walked into the open-air hall, munching a papaya. Aang turned, and Katara felt the world slow down. Aang’s arm continued in its arc, his fist producing a fireball straight toward Sokka. 

“Sokka!” Katara screamed, leaping to her feet and uncorking her water pouch. Before she could bend the water out, Zuko’s arm cut through the fireball headed straight for Sokka. 

“Aang! You’ve got to be more careful!” Zuko yelled as he turned to his student. 

“Yeah, I’ll say! You almost burned off my ponytail!” Sokka said, pointing to the singed end of his hair. 

“That might have been a good thing.” Toph smirked as she crunched on more fire flakes. She seemed completely impassive to what happened, and Katara felt the urge to slap the bag of fire flakes out of her hand. “Simmer down, Katara, I’m only joking,” she said, as if she could read Katara’s thoughts from the tensing of her muscles. 

“Sokka, I’m really sorry,” Aang said. His hand rubbed the back of his neck. “I was trying to be so careful. I never want to burn anyone again, not after what happened to Katara when I was learning from Jeong Jeong.”

Katara walked to him and put her arm around his shoulders. “It’s not your fault. Your teacher should have been giving you better instruction.” She looked up to see Zuko glaring at her. 

“You’re blaming me for this? If it weren’t for me, you’d be an only child right now!”

“If it weren’t for you, Aang would be learning from a real teacher, not some banished teenager!”

“Guys, stop fighting!” Aang pushed his way in between them. “Katara, I’ll be more careful. I won’t burn anyone. Zuko, please forgive me. I need a firebending teacher. Don’t be mad at each other. The monks used to tell us that a house with weak walls will fall.”

“I’m glad to know they taught you architecture as well as airbending,” Toph said dryly. 

“No, it’s not about that,” Aang replied. “It means that a group will only be strong so long as everyone works together. I need both of you.” Aang looked back and forth from Katara to Zuko. “Please?”

Katara turned her back to Zuko and crossed her arms. “I said I would go along with what you think is right, Aang,” she said quietly. 

Zuko ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “Fine. Aang, let’s go back to practicing hot squats. Your form needs work.” 

Katara stomped to her room, snatching the bag of fire flakes out of Toph’s hands as she went. 

“H-hey, what about me?” Sokka asked. “I’m the one who was almost burned!” Toph responded by pulling his ponytail sharply. 

“You look fine to me,” she said.

. . . . .

Zuko turned over in the small bed in the air temple bedroom. The thin mattress felt every bit of its hundred years. Punching his pillow, he tried to fluff it up enough to get comfortable, but after more tossing, he gave up on sleep. The light from the nearly-full moon poured in through the window, casting a cool white glow on the stones set in the floor. They looked almost like ice, and felt cool under his bare feet. He decided to practice his bending, since he couldn’t sleep. 

He made his way out of his room and climbed the stairs onto the mesa above the cliffside temple. A forest grew near the edge of the cliff where the temple was hidden, and Zuko slowly walked between the trees, breathing the cool night air crisp in through his nose. He produced a small flame to guide his way to the stream that ran through the forest. He came up here every evening before dinner to clean himself and his clothes after the day’s training with Aang. It was a quiet, peaceful spot. Owlmonkeys hooted softly, and small animals scurried through the brush, too small or quick for Zuko to spot. Ahead, the stream ran into a dark pool surrounded by a thick stand of bamboo. 

The moonlight sparkled on the water, and Zuko realized Katara was standing in the pool, quietly bending the water around her like a noblewoman pulling on a silk robe. She wore her underclothes, the ones he had seen her in as she trained Aang in waterbending. Zuko crouched behind the bamboo, afraid the noise of turning back would startle her from her concentration. She would accuse him of spying her, of course. Zuko knew she only saw the worst in him. 

He wanted the water bend around her shoulders, down her arms, flowing like snakes around her wrists and waist. He wondered what the temperature of the water was. He had seen her turn lukewarm water into ice and back in an instant.  _ But can she heat it up on her own? If she can’t, she’s probably freezing,  _ he thought. 

He was too far to see if she had goosebumps along her arms, and his legs began to cramp from holding his crouched position. He decided to turn around and head back to bed, leaving Katara to her bending, but as he stood, a twig snapped under his foot. Instantly, the water flowing around Katara’s body splashed back into the pool. 

“Who’s there?” she called. 

Zuko froze, wondering if he should try to slip away. He weighed his odds against her chasing him. He hated to admit it, but in the moonlight, she would be more than a match for him. Instead of escaping, he called out. 

“Sorry, it’s me. I didn’t realize anyone was up here.”

“Zuko?” Disbelief crept into Katara’s voice. “What are you doing up here?” She crossed her arms across her chest. “Are you going to tie me to a tree again?”

Zuko cringed at the idea of trying to tie this master waterbender to anything. “N-no. And sorry about that. Tying you to a tree, I mean. And for sneaking up on you. But that was accidental.”

“Right.” Katara stepped out of the pool, and Zuko tried to ignore how the droplets of water on her skin shone like specks of silver. She bent to gather her clothes, and Zuko shifted his weight from one foot to the other, wondering if he should just go. He began to open his mouth to ask, but Katara held up a hand. “Wait. Did you hear that?”

Zuko cocked his head. “Hear what?”

“Shh!” Katara turned toward the underbrush. Then Zuko heard it. A panting, snuffling sound. Something big. And closeby. 

“Look out!” Katara screamed as a giant boarwolf crashed through the forest. It raised its tusks and bellowed, swinging its head from side to side. Katara bent water from the creek as Zuko fell back into his defensive firebending stance. The beast bellowed again, and its front hoof scraped the ground, preparing to charge toward Zuko. Before he could react, Katara bent the water around the boarwolf’s legs. The water turned to ice, effectively pinning the boarwolf where it stood. For a moment, Zuko felt relieved. It seemed like Katara had finished this fight before it had started. Unfortunately, the boarwolf had other ideas. Twisting its spine, it used the momentum of its back muscles to break free from the icy bonds. Its hooves smashed the ice into splinters. 

“Uh, got any other ideas?” Zuko asked. The beast bellowed again. 

“Climb!” Katara grabbed the lowest branch of the closest tree and pulled herself up. She quickly began reaching for the next branch. Zuko watched for only a second before he ran after her. He followed her up the tree as the boarwolf began to charge. It hit the trunk of the tree just as Zuko reached the branch Katara was sitting on. They gripped the tree as it shook from the impact from the beast. Although they were twenty feet up in the air, Zuko wished they were twice as high. The stench of the boarwolf was overpowering, like it had rolled in a sulfur spring before eating an entire field of fire beans. 

“Can you bend from here?” Zuko asked. “I don’t want to burn the whole forest down!”

Katara nodded, and readjusted herself so she straddled the tree branch she sat on. Gripping the branch with her thighs, she used her arms to bend water from the stream. A wave reared up, eclipsing some of the smaller trees. Zuko had only seen a wave this immense when the same waterbender had directed one toward him at the north pole. The boarwolf stared with its beady pink eyes at the wave, but did not back down. Its tusks glinted in the moonlight. 

“Urrr-ahk!” Katara grunted as she sliced her arms apart. The wave turned to sharp icicles that tore through the air toward the beast. It bellowed and stood its ground. A few of the icicles pierced it, but its hide was thick. Nearby, the stream was nearly depleted of its water. 

“Try something else!” Zuko yelled, but before she could raise her arms, the boarwolf slammed into the trunk of the tree again. They both yelled as they held on. 

“It’s going to knock down the whole tree!” Katara’s eyes were huge, and Zuko felt fire in his lungs. 

“I need you to trust me.”

“What?” She stared at him as the boarwolf continued to slam its body against the tree. 

“I need you to trust me!” He reached up and grabbed her wrist. “When I say jump, you jump, okay?”

Katara nodded. The boarwolf backed up and stomped its front hooves. 

“I think this is it,” Zuko said as the animal began to charge. As it collided, they heard a deafening crack that ran through the wood. As the tree pitched unsteadily, Zuko let go of Katara’s wrist and pulled himself to a stand on the branch of the tree. She stood next to him. The tree wobbled unsteadily, reminding Zuko of the ship he had lived on for three long years. Beside him, Katara, only in her underclothes, looked determined. He knew she hadn’t come this far to be killed by a wild animal. 

The boarwolf bellowed and rammed the tree again. This time, the tree snapped, the top half bending precariously. As it began to fall, Zuko judged the distance to the ground. “Now!” he yelled, jumping and twisting to send a fireball down the tree toward the animal. Beside him, he felt Katara tuck herself into a ball and roll. He was not so coordinated. He fell with his back to the ground, hearing someone scream his name before he blacked out.

. . . . .

Katara smoothed back Zuko’s hair from his face. His eyes were shut, but he was still breathing. She glanced back at the boarwolf, but it was clearly dead. Zuko had aimed the fireball directly between its eyes. Its carcass was still smoking, but Katara had more important matters now. Bending water from the stream, she placed her hands on Zuko’s chest. Two ribs were broken from his fall, but they had not punctured his lungs. She could also feel a nasty bump forming at the back of his head. He’d have a raging headache when he woke up, but he’d be fine. She used the water to heal him, feeling his bones fuse back together and his bruises mend. As she finished, his eyelids fluttered. She had spent weeks watching his every step, waiting for him to make a single mistake that signaled his true intentions with Aang. Now that he was completely at her mercy, she felt nothing but compassion. 

“Katara?” he asked. “Am I dead?” He groaned and shut his eyes. 

“No, but you’re in a lot of pain.” She looked him over carefully while searching her own heart for the hatred that had burned in her until now. 

“What about the boarwolf?”

“Dead,” she answered simply. She swallowed and took a deep breath. “Zuko, I want to say thank you.”

“Then say it.” His eyes opened slowly and met hers. 

“Hey, I just saved your life,” she reminded him. She could not understand how he could be so infuriating even as they narrowly escaped being gouged by a savage animal. 

“And I just saved yours!”

She sighed. Even though she was beginning to forgive him for his past, he could still irritate her in an instant. “Okay, fine. We’ll say it at the same time.” 

“That childish, huh?” 

Katara set her jaw as he smirked. “I healed your ribs, but I can just as easily break them again,” she warned. “We’ll say thanks on three. One, two-”

Zuko raised his hand and pulled her head down to his. He kissed her gently, and her eyes flew open. He tasted like charcoal and wood. She began to pull away, but the kiss felt just as healing as any water. It was as if she could feel the torn bits inside herself start to mend. Her eyes closed, and she touched his face as their kiss lengthed. His lips moved in intensity, pressing more firmly when he felt her relax into him. As she pulled back, he said, “Thanks.”

“For saving your life?”

“No. For that. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.” 

She felt her heart lurch, as though it forgot how to keep beating. Before she could respond, she heard someone yell her name. 

“Katara!”

“Aang? Over here!” she yelled back. Aang, Sokka, and Toph appeared through the trees. 

“What happened?” Toph asked. “We heard a crash. Is that Zuko?”

“We got surprised by a boarwolf,” Katara explained, helping Zuko sit up. “Zuko got banged up, but we’re both fine.” Sokka walked over to the dead animal to check it out. 

“This is great!” he said as he prodded the boarwolf with his club. 

“It is?” Aang asked. 

“This’ll feed us for a week!” He took out his sword and began hacking through a hind leg. “Aang, help me carry this back to camp.”

“Uh, no offense, Sokka, but I’d rather not,” Aang said, holding up his hands. 

“Your loss. Toph?”

“Absolutely.” Toph marched over to the beast and stomped, bending the earth around the carcass, and lifting the animal and the ground into the air. “Let’s go, this thing is heavier than it looks,” she said through gritted teeth. She and Sokka headed back to the temple. 

“Do you need any help?” Aang asked Zuko as he clumsily got to his feet. 

“No, I’m fine. Everything hurts, but Katara healed me.” Zuko’s eyes shot to hers. 

She shrugged. The taste of him still burned on her lips like hot tea. 

“Katara, where are your clothes?” Aang said. 

“Spirits, I was taking a bath.” Her face grew hot. “Aang, can you make sure he gets back okay? I’ll go find my clothes.”

“I’m not a child, I can get back on my own,” Zuko said sulkily. 

“It’s okay, Sifu Hotman, I don’t mind. Plus, you can tell me all about the fight,” Aang said cheerfully. 

“I just don’t like the idea of Katara being out here alone, after all that.” Zuko rubbed the back of his neck. Despite herself, she felt anger rise in her chest. 

“I can take care of myself,” she spat. 

“Really? Because I seem to remember you being stuck in a tree with no plan.” Zuko stared daggers at her, and she wished she could use a water whip on him. 

“Stop fighting! Boarwolves only charge when someone disturbs them. Otherwise they’re pretty tame. As long as Katara’s quiet, there won’t be another one.” Aang twirled his staff. “Firebending practice starts bright and early, right, Zuko?” Zuko only groaned in reply and followed Aang back to the temple. 

Katara watched them go. Aang bounced away on the balls of his feet as carefree as always, while Zuko limped beside him. Just as she was about to return to the stream, she saw Zuko look back over his shoulder at her. She turned quickly and ran to find her clothes. 

. . . . .

The next morning, Katara woke stiff and sore. She felt like the boarwolf had rammed into her, not the tree. She wondered how Zuko felt. It would probably be best if she could spend more time this morning checking his ribs and head. For once, she didn’t feel angry when she thought of him. Shrugging off the thought, she rolled out of bed and dressed herself.

When she walked into the bright morning sunlight filling the air temple’s courtyard, she was surprised to see Zuko leading Aang through a firebending technique. Bruises purpled his shoulders and arms, but his vest hid his back and chest. 

“What’s going on with you?” Toph asked as she appeared from the hall leading from her own room. Katara jumped. 

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

“Your heart is beating as fast as a jackalope’s.” 

Katara laughed uneasily. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself. Whose turn is it to make breakfast?”

Weeks ago, Katara, who was sick of mothering the group, had decided when they reached the air temple that she, Sokka, and Toph would split the cooking and cleaning while Zuko trained Aang. When Toph had tried complaining that cooking was hard because she was blind, Katara had argued that if her blindness hadn’t kept her from becoming the Earth Rumble Champion three years running, she could manage a frying pan and eggs. Toph had only relented when Katara refused to make her food anymore. 

“Sokka’s, I think. Is he up yet?” Katara looked around. 

“He never went to sleep,” Toph said as she pointed. A small shed, hastily constructed of rocks and boulders, leaned against one wall of the open-air cavern. “He’s smoking the boarwolf meat. I made the smoking hut last night when I brought the thing back.”

Katara walked to the hut and almost fell over from the overpowering smell of smoking meat. Sokka was burning small fires under each slab of meat he had cut from the beast. 

“Well, look who’s finally awake!” Sokka said as he poked his head out from the hut. His eyebrows were nearly singed off. “Can you bend some water onto the fires? We need more smoke.” Katara followed him into the hut and bent water from a bowl near the door, sprinkling it over the wood so they puffed and whined. 

“Smells almost like penguin meat,” Katara noted. She tied her long hair into a bun at the base of her neck. 

“Less rubbery, actually,” Sokka said before he ripped off a hunk of meat with his teeth. “Keep that up, would ya? I’ll make us all breakfast.” 

Katara dutifully kept the fires stoked and added water when the logs needed more smoke. Smoking meat had always been a relaxing chore for her. Hours could pass by back at the south pole as she tended the fires and watched the meat slowly turn from red to brown. She almost felt like she was home as she focused on smoking the meat. She only looked up half an hour later when someone walked into the hut. 

“Need any help?” a raspy voice asked.

“Zuko!” she said in surprise. He handed her a bowl of fried rice. 

“Sokka asked me to bring you breakfast.” He sat next to her, and she began shoveling food in her mouth. 

“Why aren’t you training?”

“Toph wanted Aang until noon. She said his earthbending muscles will atrophy while he plays with fireworks.”

Katara chuckled. “She’s always a charmer.” She chewed another bite while Zuko added heat to a fire that was burning low. “How’s your… everything?” she asked, pointing at his body with her chopsticks. 

He groaned. “I was stiff this morning, but it’s mostly worked off from training with Aang. He really was up at the crack of dawn.”

“Do you want me to take a look?” Katara knew if Toph were here, she’d make another jab at her jackalope heart beats. She took a deep breath. No big deal. Just healing someone. 

“Do you mind?” Zuko asked, already pulling his vest off. Katara set down her breakfast and bended water from the bowl. Zuko turned his back to her, and she placed her hands on his shoulders and moved them down his back. 

“Well, your ribs feel good. I mean, they feel fine. Healed.” She shook her head, thankful Zuko wasn’t looking at her face, which felt as red as a fire lily. Her hand traveled down his back, exploring the muscles, sinew, and bone. 

“Ow!” Zuko flinched as her hand traveled over a dark bruise. 

“Here?”

“Yeah, that spot hurts a lot.” 

The water surrounding Katara’s hands glowed as she focused her energy on the bruise. The muscle began to relax under her palm. Slowly, he turned around to sit facing her. 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” As if in a trance, pulled by instinct and not thought, she leaned forward, her lips brushing his. His hand reached up to tangle itself in her hair, still tied in a low bun. He pulled her closer, lips opening as his tongue entered her mouth, tasting hers. This kiss was very unlike the ones she and Jet had snuck in the trees of the Freedom Fighter camp, those jerky, sweaty, clumsy kisses. She pushed those memories away and focused on Zuko’s smooth lips. One hand tugged gently at her bun, trying to undo it, as the other held her waist. She realized absently that her hands were on his shoulders, and she squeezed the lean muscles. The hand in her hair pulled her bun free and raked through the frizzy waves. She pushed her tongue into his mouth, eager for more, and the hand on her waist began traveling up her side until the thumb just grazed the underside of her breast. Her breath hitched in excitement, but Zuko moved his hand away at the sudden movement. Katara broke the kiss for only a moment to whisper, “It’s okay,” before finding his hand with her own and pulling it back to her chest. He seemed to freeze as she placed his palm on her breast. She shut her eyes tight and moaned softly into his mouth as he squeezed gently. Suddenly, she smelled smoke. Too much smoke. 

“Zuko!” she screamed as the slabs of boarwolf caught fire. She leapt to her feet and bent the water out of the bowl and tried to douse the flames. Zuko stood quickly and clenched his hands into fists to quell the flames. 

“What’s going on!” Sokka yelled as he burst into the smoking hut. “My meat! It’s all burnt!” A second later, Aang and Toph pushed their way in, and the entire Gaang was stuffed inside the small room. 

“Never let a firebender near a smoking hut! First rule of meat smoking!” Sokka yelled, tears pouring down his face. Katara stifled a laugh, but Aang and Toph burst into laughter as Zuko scowled. 

“It’s gonna be okay, Sokka. We can just cut the burnt bits off,” Katara said. 

“What the spirits were you doing that the meat went up in flames?” Sokka demanded. 

“Yeah, what the spirits were you doing?” Toph asked with a smirk. Katara glared at her, but the blind girl took no notice. 

“Uh, healing,” Zuko said quickly. “I’m still a little sore from yesterday.”

“I’m sure you’re not the only one who’s sore,” Toph replied, unsuccessfully hiding her grin. 

“Don’t you have more earthbending to do?” Katara snapped. Toph laughed and grabbed Aang’s arm, dragging him out of the hut as he looked in confusion back and forth between Toph and Katara. 

“You are gonna help me cut off the burnt parts,” Sokka said, pointing at Katara. “And you,” he turned to Zuko, “are gonna stay the hell away from my meat.”

“Trust me, I don’t want anything to do with your meat,” Zuko said quickly, hands held out in front of him. Katara smirked as she grabbed his vest off the floor, balled it up, and threw it at him. 


	2. Chapter 2

#  Part 1: Chapter 2

* * *

AN: For clarity, this is set in early summer (May-ish?) and Sozin’s comet is expected late summer (early September). In the TV series, Zuko joins the Gaang weeks before the comet, but I want to give them all more time to “warm up” to each other. This chapter has more dialogue than chapter 1, but it’s all set-up for future chapters. Zutara lemon at the end. Enjoy! 

* * *

Zuko tossed and turned in his bed, the pain in his ribs not the only thing keeping him up. He couldn’t stop thinking about that moment in the smoking hut. She had reached for him first. Maybe he was no longer an enemy in her eyes. Maybe she wanted him as much as he wanted her. The hope muddled his mind. And spirits, he couldn’t stop picturing the moment when she had actually encouraged him to touch her breast! 

He rolled onto his side to ease the pain. Mai had never been so responsive, so eager for his touch. Maybe she had never really wanted him. Or maybe she simply lacked the spark that Katara had. He shoved his face into his pillow. Mai didn’t matter anymore. And if he was being honest with himself, Katara didn’t matter either. Or this thing with Katara, anyway. He was here to teach the Avatar firebending and to seek his own destiny in the war. He couldn’t let attraction get in the way of that. 

He lifted his head and looked at the picture of his uncle that he had placed on the small table next to his bed. Uncle would have known what to say. It was because of his uncle that he was here, lying on this dingy mattress anyway, instead of his soft royal bed at the Fire Palace or next to Mai. He offered a silent prayer that his uncle was safe, wherever he was. He also prayed he had the strength to focus on training Aang, and to let his new feelings toward Katara burn to ash. 

. . . . .

Over the next several days, Zuko tried to avoid Katara. He shrugged off her few attempts at conversation and took to eating long after everyone else was finished. He focused on Aang and firebending, but he felt his temper grow short with the airbender. The group treaded carefully around him, careful not to ignite his foul mood. 

All except for the earthbender. 

“Sparky, what’s your problem?” she asked one night. He had arrived in the courtyard nearly an hour after Toph had called everyone for dinner. The group had long dispersed, and only Toph sat near the campfire.

“I don’t have a problem,” he said as he ladeled soup into a bowl. 

“I know when people are lying.” She folded her arms over her chest. 

“No offense, but this doesn’t concern you.” Before he had even finished speaking, a peddle hit him between the eyes. “Ow! What was that for?”

Toph shrugged. “Who knows. It doesn’t concern me, after all.”

Zuko sighed loudly. “Look, I’m not here to make friends. I need to focus on preparing Aang to face my father. I don’t have time for games or jokes or whatever else you all do.” 

Toph stood and banged her heel on the floor. Two rock stools appeared before the fire. “That doesn’t explain why you suddenly won’t eat with all of us.” She sat on one of the stone stools and pointed to the other. “The rest of them are scared of making you mad. You’ve been on edge lately. You need to chill out.”

“You’re telling a _firebender_ to chill out?” Zuko sat on the stool and slurped down the hot soup.

“Yeah. You’re being more stubborn than an earthbender. And that’s coming from the greatest earthbender the world has ever seen.”

Despite himself, he laughed. Beneath her bangs, he saw one side of her mouth quirk up in a half-smile. “I just don’t want to mess this up. This is my last chance to regain my honor. Really regain it, I mean. Not just win my father’s approval. I can’t let myself get distracted by anything else.”

“Just because you have a job, that doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t. We’re each doing our part to win this war. But training Aang doesn’t mean you have to give up on yourself either.”

“You wouldn’t understand.” Zuko finished his soup and stood.

“Get all huffy if you want, but don’t take it out on the rest of us. Helping Aang is your first priority, but it doesn’t have to be your only priority.” Toph poked at the fire with a stick. With a start, Zuko realized that he could imagine his uncle saying something similar. Iroh wouldn’t have wanted this for Zuko. 

_Not my only priority_ , he thought as he imagined Katara’s lips on his own. 

“Thanks, Toph. I guess I needed to hear that.” He pushed his hair out of his face. “Do you know where I can find Katara?”

Toph shrugged, and said, “I don’t know, but keep it down, will you? My feet hear all your shenanigans.”

Zuko cringed, but turned to look for Katara. Deciding to check the pool at the mesa first, he began climbing the stairs. 

“Hey, Zuko?” He turned and saw Sokka emerging from a hallway. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Zuko’s stomach flipped. If Toph knew about Katara and him, who else did? He tried to keep his face impassive. 

“What’s up?”

“If someone was captured by the Fire Nation, where would they be taken?” Sokka asked. Zuko squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. _Not my only priority_ , he thought again. 

. . . . .

When Katara got up to make breakfast the next morning, she saw Momo holding a scrap of paper. Toph, hearing the paper crinkle, asked, “What’s that?”

Katara flipped the paper around and tried to read the handwriting. “It’s a note. It says, ‘Need meat. Gone fishing. Back in a few days. Sokka and Zuko.’”

“Meat? But we still have half the boarwolf!” Toph said. 

“At least I finally get to sleep in!” Aang said as he flopped onto Appa’s tail.

“There’s more.” Katara squinted at the handwriting. “‘Aang, practice your firebending while I'm gone. Do twenty sets of fire fists and ten hot squats every time you hear a badgerfrog croak. Zuko.’”

Aang sat up. “This isn’t fair. Nobody else has homework.” When they heard a croak, he dutifully got up and began training. Katara turned to Toph. 

“Looks like it’s just you and me for breakfast. What do you want?”

“Hmm. Ocean kumquat dumplings?” 

“Only if you help.” Katara walked to their makeshift kitchen and used spark rocks to start the fire. “You remember how to make the dough?”

“Yes, _Mom_ ,” Toph complained as she grabbed a bowl. She sniffed loudly to smell if it was clean. Katara smiled despite herself. She and Toph had had rough patches in their relationship, but now their bickering was more of a comfortable habit than actual annoyance. 

“It’s gonna be pretty quiet around here without Sparky, huh?” Toph said casually. Katara did not miss the glint in her eye. She regretted thinking that Toph rarely got on her nerves anymore. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Katara asked, her voice sharp. 

“I think you know exactly what that means.” Toph added water to the flour and began kneading it together.

“I don’t know what you think is going on, but, well, it isn’t.” Katara mashed the ocean kumquats with more force than she needed. 

“I can tell you’re lying,” Toph said in a sing-song. “Oooh, Katara’s got a crush.”

“I do not! It was a one-time thing, and it’s not going to happen again!” She flicked bits of kumquat at Toph. “You better not bring this up again. Or tell anyone.”

“Tell anyone what?” Aang asked as he approached the fire. He folded his legs and collapsed next to Katara. 

“Nothing. Girl stuff,” she said quickly. Toph cackled, and Aang bended two pebbles in the air in front of him. 

“Oh. The monks told us all about girl stuff.” He pretended to shudder. 

“Did they tell you about _girl and boy_ stuff too?” Toph asked. Katara reached over the bowl and smacked the top of her head. “Hey!” Toph said as she covered her head. “I’m only asking because that’s some pretty crucial information the monks might have left out!”

Aang scratched his arrow. “I mean, they explained babies and that kind of thing. But we only saw girls when they visited from the Eastern or Western temples for festivals twice a year for the equinox.”

“Airbenders were separated by gender?” Toph asked. Katara continued mashing the kumquats as she listened. 

“Yeah. Women live in the Eastern and Western temples, and men in the Northern and Southern.”

“So how did, you know, they get airbender babies?” Katara asked, cringing from her own question. Aang only laughed and stretched his legs out. 

“The equinox festivals, of course.” He yawned, and Toph stopped kneading the dough to stare in his direction.

“Festivals? For making babies?” she asked, sticking out her tongue. 

“Sure. Airbenders don’t have traditional marriages like the other nations. Most tend to pair up and mate only with each other once a year during the festivals, but a lot mated with whoever was available.” He grabbed a handful of lychee nuts and popped one in his mouth. “They only mate with one other person per festival though. That way each baby’s paternity is known.”

“You know a lot about baby-making, Twinkletoes,” Toph said dryly. She pinched off a bit of dough and began flattening it into a circle. “And I thought monks abstained from all worldly pleasures.”

“What happens to the baby boys then? Do they stay with their mothers?” Katara asked. Despite herself, she felt a morbid curiosity for the sex lives of the monks.

“They stay for about two years, then go to either the Northern or Southern temple. Whichever one their father isn’t at. And the girls get sent to the opposite temple they were born at too,” Aang said through a mouthful of lychee nut. 

“So they don’t know their parents?” Katara asked quietly. 

“Right. Monks view everyone as their brothers and sisters. No need for all that nuclear family stuff,” he said, shaking his head. “But, I guess when I visited my friends Bumi and Kuzon, I always felt a little jealous that they had parents. I like being a monk though.” 

“I have another question about monk antics,” Toph said as she pushed the bowl of dough away. Aang looked at her expectantly. “Now, don’t take this the wrong way,” she began. 

“Toph,” Katara warned. She knew right where the girl’s mind was headed. She had the same question, but decided it was best to leave some things unasked. 

“Sure, what is it?” Aang asked brightly. “It’s okay, Katara. Monks have nothing to hide.”

“If monks don’t know who their blood relatives are, how do they keep brothers and sisters from getting together when they grow up? How do you know you aren’t all inbred?”

Katara smacked her palm against her forehead, and Aang howled with laughter. 

“The elders keep records, of course! They’re not available for everyone to look at, but they make sure that direct relatives don’t get paired up at festivals.” 

“Well, that’s a relief,” Toph said, and Katara silently agreed. 

. . . . .

The three of them traded stories and traditions over the next three days while they waited for Sokka and Zuko to return. Katara explained betrothal and marriage customs in the water tribes, Toph talked about the history of the Earth Rumble Tournament, and Aang told them about the best recipes the monks used to make with airbending. As the sun set on the third day, Aang asked, “Do you think anything happened to them?”

“Eh, they’re probably fine,” Toph replied as she picked her teeth. 

“I don’t know, Toph. We should probably have a plan.” Katara braided her hair to keep her anxious hands busy. 

Toph stretched her arms overhead and yawned. “Let’s give them three more days. If they’re not back by then, we’ll go looking for them.”

As she said this, a loud crash rumbled through the temple. 

“I’m gonna go see what that was!” Aang yelled as he grabbed his glider and took off. Katara and Toph sprinted toward the sound of the crash. As they rounded a corner of the temple, they saw a massive fire nation warship anchored where the war balloon used to be. Katara readied herself for a fight, but before she could bend the water out of her water skin, the door to a small room under the warship opened, and Sokka stepped out. 

“Sokka!” she said, running to hug her brother. “What are you doing in this thing? What happened to the war balloon?”

Zuko appeared in the airship doorway. “It kind of got destroyed.”

Aang laughed. “Sounds like a crazy fishing trip.” He pushed past Zuko to explore the ship. 

Sokka pulled away from Katara’s embrace, and she stood awkwardly to the side of the ship. She tried to avoid looking at Zuko, and she could practically feel him doing the same to her. 

Toph reached up and touched the metal of the walls. “Did you at least get some good meat?”

“The best meat of all. The meat of friendship,” Sokka said dramatically, pointing to the doorway where Suki appeared beside Aang. 

“Where’d you run into Suki?” Katara asked as she gave her friend a hug. 

“Uhh, we might have gone to a fire nation prison,” Sokka answered. Katara glared at Zuko. 

“Was that your idea?” she spat. 

Zuko raised his hands in defense. “Mine? No way! Sokka wanted to look for your dad!” He crossed his arms and returned her glare. She heard him whisper under his breath, “I’m happy to see you too.”

Katara turned to Sokka. “Did you find Dad?”

He shook his head. “No. It’s a pretty crazy story though. We get to the prison, impersonate guards, realize Suki is there, Zuko got captured, then we find out that the prison warden is Zuko’s girlfriend’s uncle, and suddenly Azula and her friends showed up!”

“Zuko’s what?” Toph asked, rubbing a finger in her ear. Katara felt her stomach pitch.

“And then we had to fight them off on a gondola, but we stole their airship!” Sokka wrapped an arm around Suki’s shoulders as he spoke. 

“Seriously. No meat?” Toph asked. “I’m sick of boarwolf.” 

Sokka sighed, clearly hoping his story would be a bigger hit with the Gaang. “There’s some provisions in the airship. Probably good stuff too, since this was Azula’s.”

“Look!” Aang called from within the warship. “Plums! I can make plum pie like Monk Gyatso and I used to make!” He came out of the ship carrying a bushel of plums. “Tonight, we eat like it’s spring equinox at the Southern Air Temple!”

. . . . .

After dinner, as the group sat around the campfire with stomachs full of boarwolf, stir-fried vegetables, ocean kumquat dumplings, and plum pie, Toph managed to drag the full story out of Sokka and Suki. 

“And then Suki did a flying leap and took out the first guard, and then grabbed the warden by the arm and pulled his stupid headband down to gag him!” Sokka explained, using his hands to mime the action. 

“You should’ve seen the look on his face,” Suki added with a giggle. Katara watched Sokka look at Suki with eyes full of pride, and something else. Love?

“Then we dragged the warden to the gondola, but before we actually escaped, Azula and her pink friend arrived!” Sokka continued. 

“Pink friend?” Toph asked. 

“Ty Lee,” Zuko said softly. He took a burning stick out of the campfire and began playing with it. 

“That’s the girl who can block chi!” Katara said in recognition. 

“Right! So we’re on the gondola, and Azula starts shooting fire out of her hands and feet and uses manacles to get up the gondola line, and the pink girl, Ty Lee, is just running along the top of it, so me and Suki and Zuko leave the warden tied up and climb to the top of the gondola to fight them!”

“Wow!” Aang’s arms were wrapped around his knees, his attention rapt on Sokka. “How’d you win?”

“You’d never believe it! They started cutting the line, but Zuko’s Fire Nation girlfriend stopped them!” Sokka exclaimed. 

“Ex-girlfriend,” Zuko said pointedly. Katara didn’t miss the spark of annoyance in his eyes. 

“Whatever,” Sokka continued. “So Azula and the pink girl blast off to a gondola going the other direction, and we escape! All thanks to Zuko’s ex!” Aang applauded enthusiastically. A log in the fire snapped, and the group grew quiet. 

“It really seemed like she still cares about you,” Suki said to Zuko as she snuggled closer to Sokka. 

Katara watched Zuko’s face turn red. “Uh, no, well-”

“Feelings for Zuko? You gotta be kidding me.” Toph threw back her head and laughed as she playfully punched him in the arm. “There’s about as much to love about this guy as there is to that boarwolf!” 

When Zuko began to chuckle, the rest of the group joined in, laughing and talking over each other as they began to clean up from the meal. When they got up, Katara caught Zuko looking at her like he had a question he knew she couldn’t answer. 

. . . . .

Zuko raised his hand to knock on Katara’s door, long after everyone else had gone to bed. Sokka and Suki had quickly run off after dinner, while Aang and Toph had played an earthbending game in the dark. He didn’t know where Katara went, but now he saw the faint glimmer of candlelight under her door. 

Cursing his own nervousness, he rapped on the door with his knuckles. 

“Who is it?”

“It’s me.” Zuko turned the knob and peeked into her room. It was small and sparsely furnished like the rest of the bedrooms in the temple. Katara sat on a gray, threadbare rug, holding a book open. A candle burned on the table by her bed. Next to it was a full bowl of water. 

Katara looked up from the book in surprise. “Zuko!”

He shuffled, and pointed to a spot on the rug. “Can I sit?”

She slapped the book shut and gestured with it. “Fine. What do you want?”

He sat cross-legged on the floor and tried to think of a pretend injury. The waterbender always seemed to calm down when she was healing. “There’s this, uh, pain in my neck,” he said, twisting his neck to the side. 

“I’m not here to fix all your boo-boos,” she snapped. 

He sighed. “Why are you so angry with me?”

“Angry with you? Seriously? Why is everything always about you?” 

He buried his head in his hands. When he looked up again, she was glaring at him. “Can we talk about what happened when we were smoking the boarwolf? Or when we were in the forest?”

“Maybe you should bring it up with your girlfriend,” she said. Zuko noticed the water in the bowl was rocking side to side. 

“First of all, she’s not my girlfriend. She was, once. But I broke up with her when I came to help Aang.” Katara opened the book and ignored him, but he continued. “I understand if you don’t want to have anything to do with me. I get it, trust me.” He stood up. “But I wouldn’t lie about Mei. We broke up. And you and me, well, let’s just try not to kill each other in front of Aang.” 

As he turned to leave, two streams of water tightened around his wrists. They spun him around, pulled his arms above his head, and froze against a wall. Katara was on her feet in front of Zuko, who was pinned to the wall. “You promise you didn’t lie about having a girlfriend?”

“I promise,” he said through gritted teeth. When he saw her shoulders relax, he heated his hands to melt the ice just enough that he could break free, grab her by the waist, and spin her around so her back was to the wall instead. Her arms flew up to protect herself, but he grabbed her wrists and kissed her. Her lips were warm and soft, and immediately her hands relaxed in his grip. She kissed him back, urgently, as if she was trying to tell him a secret. He resisted the urge to push his body fully against hers, since he had no idea what her boundaries were. As their kiss deepened, he let go of her wrists and her arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him into her. He could feel the soft swell of her breasts against his chest, and his breathing quickened. He broke their kiss to gently bite her neck, and she gasped, gripping his shoulders tightly. 

Zuko never felt her foot plant itself on the wall behind her, and never knew what hit him when she used her foot to push off the wall and force him down to the floor. He landed on the rug, and Katara was on top of him in an instant, kissing him and unbuttoning his shirt. Zuko ran his hands through her long dark hair, soft as the down of a turtleduckling. As much as he wanted to enjoy this moment forever, with this beautiful waterbender on top of him, he could feel her impatience with the buttons on his shirt. He wrapped his arms around her waist and flipped them both over so he was between her legs. Taking a moment to remove his shirt, he saw the desire in her huge turquoise eyes. He planted his hands on either side of her head and lowered himself down to kiss her. Her fingernails drew patterns along his back as they kissed, and he bent to kiss her neck and earlobe again, until he realized with horror that his erection was pressed directly against her pelvis. She could probably feel it, separated only by his pants and her dress. Scrambling off her, Zuko grabbed his shirt and pulled it on. 

“I- I’m sorry,” he stammered. Katara sat up. Her hair was tousled and looked even more beautiful than ever. He pushed the thought away. 

“Zuko, what-”

“It’s not you, it’s me,” he interrupted. “I’m really sorry.”

“Well I’m not,” Katara said. “Why did you stop?”

“I can’t explain,” he said. He quickly buttoned up his shirt. He could have explained, he knew. _He would never be worthy of someone like her._


	3. Chapter 3

#  Part 1: Chapter 3

* * *

AN: Always get consent before kissing and/or becoming sexual with someone! This is a work of fiction, and should not be taken as a “How-To” manual. Also, I have not read any Avatar comics or watched Korra, so nothing I’m writing about is canon. I hope you enjoy Chapter 3!

* * *

The next morning, Katara made mush for breakfast. She knew calling it “mush” might have been a stretch though. She had thrown leftover plums, ocean kumquats, flour, water, and oats into a large pot and let it simmer for nearly an hour before calling for the group. After a moment, they all found their way to the campfire, and Katara began ladling the mush into bowls. When she handed one to Toph, Katara noticed the girl gag. 

“What’s, uh, this, Katara?” asked Aang, holding up his spoon and watching globs of the stuff plop into the bowl. 

“Breakfast.”

“Yeah, no offense, but I’m not eating that,” Sokka said. 

Katara turned to Suki, who gave her a weak smile. “I’m not feeling very hungry.”

“I’ll have some,” Zuko offered. Katara handed him a bowl brusquely. That boy was so hot and cold. She would never be able to keep up with his mood swings. His feelings were like Ty Lee swinging from one place to another, too quick to pin down. And he definitely blocked her chi.

Zuko held the bowl in front of him and ate a spoonful. The others watched him like he had voluntarily eaten poison. “It’s, uh, good,” he said as he swallowed. Toph simply laughed and said, 

“You’re lying!” 

Katara scowled at her, but before she could say anything, a small metal cylinder flew into the courtyard and landed near the campfire. Aang grabbed his staff and airbended it away from the group, but three more came sailing in. As the first exploded against a hanging garden, Aang yelled, “We’re under attack! Everyone get on Appa!”

“But our stuff!” Sokka yelled as Suki dragged him toward the air bison. 

“There’s no time!” Aang fended off more bombs that shot into the air temple. Katara saw Zuko sprint to the edge of the courtyard. 

“Zuko, what are you doing?” she cried as she gave Toph a boost onto Appa’s harness. 

“Go ahead! I'll hold them off. I think this is a family visit.” 

Katara saw a massive airship darken the sky. Azula’s laugh cracked the air like lightning. It was clear she and Zuko exchanged words, but the meaning was lost as more bombs exploded across the mountain. 

“She’s gonna blow this whole place right off the cliff!” Sokka cried. 

“Not if I can help it,” Aang said. Once everyone was on Appa’s back, he and Toph earthbended a path through the stone wall, giving Appa the protection of a rock helmet. As he hit firebolt after firebolt, the temporary helmet disintegrated. 

“Look, over there!” Katara pointed to Zuko, falling from an airship. Aang pulled Appa’s reins and dove underneath him. As they got closer, Katara and Sokka reached out and grabbed Zuko’s hands, pulling him to safety. The group watched Azula fall, her arms and legs flailing like a spider on its back. 

Zuko whispered, “She’s not gonna make it.” As they watched, Azula shot a firebolt and propelled herself toward the cliff edge. Appa flew higher into the sky, and Katara heard Zuko say under his breath, “Of course she did.”

. . . . .

Zuko and Sokka studied a map to find a safe place to camp out. Sokka had an intrinsic ability to know exactly where he was at any given time, and Zuko wondered if it was because he grew up in a place of ice, snow, and few obvious landmarks. Together, they chose a spot on the mainland of the Earth Kingdom, close to the sea, but far enough inland that they couldn’t be seen by any passing Fire Nation ships. 

When Appa found a comfortable clearing to land, the group unloaded their supplies from his harness. Sokka, months ago, had started instructing them to keep most of their possessions on Appa’s harness in case of emergencies. “I’ve left too much of my stuff next to waterfalls, in caves, or random other places because too many people have been chasing us!” he said to Zuko as they unpacked. 

“Yeah, uh, sorry about that,” Zuko said, rubbing the back of his neck. He decided to grab firewood before anyone else accused him of lost items over the previous months. When he grabbed a few logs, he started a fire in the middle of the clearing. 

“Wow, camping. Just like old times,” Aang said as they settled around the campfire. 

“If you really want it to feel like old times, I could, uh, chase you around a while and try to capture you.” Zuko joked. While the rest of the group laughed, he noticed Katara was silent. He knew he needed to talk to her. 

When the group finished dinner and prepared for bed, Zuko approached Katara’s tent. He called her name, unwilling to pull the flap back in case she was undressing. 

“She wandered off,” Toph said as she pounded the earth with her foot and earthbended a stone tent for herself. 

“Do you know where?” Zuko asked. Toph pointed in a general direction, and Zuko thanked her and walked off in search of Katara. He wondered if he’d ever be able to find her in the trees and rock outcroppings, so he called for her softly. 

“Katara? It’s me, Zuko. Where are you? Can we talk?” 

“I’m here.” She was sitting on the top of a large boulder overlooking the river, silhouetted against the darkening sky. He had to crane his neck up to look at her. 

“Can I sit up there with you?”

“I’d really prefer you didn’t,” she replied. Zuko ran a hand through his hair, wondering how to proceed. He needed to get this off his chest. 

“Okay, I’ll sit here then.” He sat on the grass, knowing he’d have a crick in his neck from looking up at her. He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about last night. I left without explaining myself. I keep doing that, I guess.” When Katara said nothing, he continued. “You’re smart. Resourceful. Loyal as hell to your friends. I admired you even back at the north pole. Not many sixteen-year-olds would take it upon themselves to help the Avatar save the world.” He stopped talking and tried to gauge her reaction, but she remained impassive as she stared over the river. “You’re also beautiful, but that’s not as important as the other parts,” he said awkwardly. 

“What are you getting at?” she asked sharply. 

“I have a lot of respect for you. I don’t want it to seem like I don’t.”

“This is where you say ‘but,’” Katara said. Zuko sighed. 

“But, I don’t know what you want. We can’t afford to let feelings get in the way right now, not with the war. What I’m saying is that I don’t want to mess up. Again.”

“I get it.” 

“No, you don’t.” He groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “I’ve messed up so many times. Over and over. It’s like I only ever make mistakes.”

“Are you saying kissing me was a mistake?”

“No! That’s not what I meant.” He knew he was only digging himself further into a hole. 

. . . . .

Katara watched with dark satisfaction as Zuko squirmed under her words. She enjoyed looking down on him as she sat on her boulder. As a prince, he had probably never felt beneath someone else in his life. 

But there was something pitiful about Zuko, she thought as she watched him scramble for words. She wanted to keep hating him, especially now for humiliating her the night before. There was no such thing as a good firebender. 

“I won’t touch you again,” he said. Her face must have looked skeptical because he continued. “I’m sorry for overstepping any boundaries. I don’t really-” He looked away and stared off over the river. “I don’t really know how to do this.”

Katara felt her compassionate side melt, and she wished she could harden herself like a stone. “Do what?” she asked, despite herself.

“This, you know?” he waved his hands. “Be a good person. Be someone who deserves friends or love or any sort of happiness. I could spend the rest of my life just trying to fix my past mistakes.”

Katara slowly climbed down her boulder and stood next to Zuko. 

“I’m going to bed. I think you should too.” She offered a hand, and when he took it, she pulled him to a standing position. Together, they walked back to camp. 

Neither of them noticed the eyes watching them from the darkness of the forest.

. . . . .

Katara woke when a flaming arrow lit her tent in a thousand red sparks. “We’re under attack!” she screamed as she grabbed her water skin. She scrambled out of her tent and watched Suki and Sokka stumble from Sokka’s tent. Before she registered that, Toph’s stone tent disappeared into the ground with a loud rumble. Katara scanned for the attackers as another flaming arrow shot through the dark sky toward her. She used a water whip to deflect it. A small spark bomb sailed from the other direction, and Aang, hopping off Appa’s tail, used his airbending to send it back to hell. 

“Where are they coming from?” he called to the others. 

“Is it Azula?” Suki asked as she grabbed Sokka’s club. “There’s no airship.”

“They surrounded us!” Toph yelled, pointing in several directions. Katara heard the snorting she knew too well. 

“It’s the Rough Rhinos!” She bended the water around her in a defensive position. Next to her, her friends readied themselves and their weapons. Except one. “Where’s Zuko?” she asked just as the rhinos and their riders burst through the trees. No one had the time to respond or even think as the red mercenaries began attacking in earnest. 

“Everyone on Appa!” Aang said as he deflected a spear with his staff and hopped onto Appa’s back. Suki pulled Sokka up behind her, and Toph fended off two of the massive beasts. 

“I’m getting Zuko!” Katara sprinted in the direction of his tent, bending her water back into its pouch and dodging a net thrown at her. Zuko had set up his tent against a hemispherical rock outcropping, some forty feet from the campfire. She saw him as she ran, fighting off a man on a rhino who wielded a Guan Dao. “Let’s go!” she yelled. He looked at her for only a moment before she heard an anguished bellow. Appa’s tail had caught on fire, and he roared in pain and fear. In the distraction, Zuko blasted a compact fireball that hit his attacker on the side of the head. The man slid off his rhino and stopped moving. 

Across the clearing, Katara saw Aang try to pull Toph onto Appa, whose tail was in flames. She turned, and Katara met her unseeing eyes. Toph slid into her earthbending position and stomped with her arms outstretched. A wall appeared, separating Katara and Zuko from the rest of the Rough Rhinos and obscuring their line of sight. Katara gasped in relief until she turned and realized Toph had inadvertently trapped them between the wall and the rock outcropping. 

. . . . .

Zuko could hear the Rough Rhinos regroup after Appa had flown away. From their tone, he guessed they assumed everyone had been on Appa, and they didn’t seem to know he and Katara were hidden nearby. He cursed Toph for trapping them, but he also knew she had probably saved their lives. While he had taken on the Rough Rhinos with his uncle once, the mercenaries seemed more prepared now than they had then. He wondered how they’d been able to find them. 

When he and Katara heard the Rhinos leave, they both waited an additional half-hour before speaking. 

“Do you think you could give me a boost? I might be able to scale the wall,” Katara said. 

“No offense, but it’s too smooth. And forty feet high. Do you have any water?”

“No, I dropped my water skin when Toph bended the wall around us.”

“It’s probably best if we just wait then.” He bended a small fire in his palm to light the space around them. 

“Well, I don’t want to just sit here until Toph comes back for us! There’s got to be a way out,” she said, looking over the rock face. 

“Look, she knows where we are. My guess is that we’ll only have to wait until morning.”

Katara stared up at the wall, but Zuko could see her shoulders slump in defeat. He sighed, doused his palm fire, went into his tent, and returned with two moon peaches. He offered one to her, and they sat together and ate in silence. The moon peeked through the sliver of night sky they could see between the wall and rock outcropping, still hours away from dawn. As their adrenaline wore off, Katara looked like a heavy blanket of exhaustion had wrapped around her. 

“I have an extra blanket if you want,” Zuko offered.

Katara nodded and followed him into his tent. It was cramped with two, but when Zuko dug the blanket out of his pack and she spread it across the ground, she was too tired to care. She lay down and immediately fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. 

. . . . .

The release to unconsciousness did not come as easily to Zuko. He was aware, too aware, of Katara’s proximity, lying just a few inches from him. Her breathing deepened and slowed, but Zuko’s eyes would not shut. He thought about his uncle, and where he could possibly be. He pictured Mai, wearing a dark red robe, her lips set in an impassive line. And, unbidden, a memory of his mother bubbled up like water just beginning to boil. 

His mother was kneeling in front of him, using a white handkerchief to blot at a bloody cut on his knee. He had fallen while practicing his firebending forms, ones Azula had mastered months before. His mother had heard him crying and had run to his side, kissing him and telling him what a brave soldier he was. Zuko was only four or five in the memory. 

He rolled onto his side away from Katara. He hadn’t seen his mother since he was ten, and some days he didn’t even think of her at all. As his eyelids began to drift close, he vowed that, if he survived the war, he would find out what had happened to Ursa. 

That night, Zuko dreamed his mother was holding him like she used to. Every night when he was a child, she would tuck him into bed with him and tell him stories that ranged all over the world. He would fall asleep listening to her talk about the earthbender lovers Oma and Shu, a river spirit called the Painted Lady, and an ancient civilization called the Sun Warriors. As she talked, she would hold him and stroke his hair, a soothing tradition that helped him sleep even after the worst days. 

When sunlight streamed through the open tent flap, Zuko felt the memory of his mother’s arm still draped over him. His eyes fluttered open, chasing away his drowsiness. He lay on his side, realizing a real arm wrapped around his waist and a soft breath blew on his neck. In an instant, Zuko was alert, realizing the arm could not belong to his mother. 

“Katara?” he whispered. Behind him, he heard the waterbender yawn. Her grip on him tightened as she snuggled into his back. “Katara, wake up,” he said louder, afraid if he moved, he would startle her. 

She shifted into a sitting position, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Zuko? What am I doing in your tent?”

He opened his mouth to remind her, but before he could get a word out, they both jumped at the sound of a crash of rock connecting with rock. 

“Good morning, sleepy heads! Toph has come to rescue you!” they heard the earthbender yell as she tore down the rock wall she had erected. 


	4. Chapter 4

#  Part 1: Chapter 4

* * *

AN: Contains some lemon! Please skip (or slow down) if that’s your thing!

* * *

“Where now? Everywhere we go, people keep finding us,” Suki said as the six rode Appa. He cruised through the clouds, his paws trailing white tendrils of mist. Katara lay on her back in Appa’s saddle looking at the wispy clouds overhead as the others poured over a map. Toph sat next to her, chewing on a piece of straw. 

“Here,” Zuko said. 

“Ember Island? That’s in the middle of the Fire Nation!” Sokka argued. 

“Sure, I get it. The closer we are to danger, the farther we are from harm,” Suki said. “Aang! Chart a course southwest!”

“Back to the Fire Nation? Flameo, hotmen!” he called as he pulled Appa’s reins. Katara shut her eyes as the bison turned. She heard Toph grab the side of the saddle and gasp. 

“I’ll never get used to flying,” she said miserably as Appa climbed higher into the sky. 

. . . . .

Zuko directed Aang to a large, abandoned summer home near the less populated side of the island. The sunlight shone on the red terracotta roof, but the paint on the walls was yellowed and peeling. Katara could see that the house was once beautiful, but had fallen into disrepair. Many of the windows were boarded up, and the front steps squeaked unhappily as she climbed them. Inside, the house was dusty and dark.

“And you know no one’s gonna be visiting?” Sokka asked nervously as he tossed a bag down to Zuko. 

“Trust me. No one’s come here in a long time.”

Inside, Katara explored the old rooms, carefully noting possible escape routes and makeshift weapons in case they were found. A window could be kicked and climbed through. A brass candelabra could be a club. Throughout it all, the eerie silence followed her. 

Katara heard Suki call from down a hallway. “Found the kitchen!” She followed the sound of Suki’s voice and met her in a large, well-stocked kitchen. Dust coated the bags of rice, but the dry air had kept most of the food from spoiling. 

“Aang, can you help us organize the food?” Katara asked as he walked in. He visibly deflated. 

“Aww, but I wanted to explore! Zuko said everyone in his family had their own suite!”

Katara dropped the bag of rice she was holding. “His family? We’re in the Fire Palace?”

“Summer home,” Zuko corrected as he entered the kitchen. His shirt stuck to his chest in sweaty patches. “And no, he can’t help. We have firebending practice.”

Katara bristled, but Aang perked up. “Okay, Sifu Hotman!” he said as they headed outside. Sokka walked in, carrying a basket with the group’s remaining food from the air temple. Katara began unpacking it, as Sokka, whistling, headed outside to watch firebending practice. 

“Doesn’t it make you mad that the boys get to go goof off while we’re stuck in here, sorting through food? And who even knows where Toph went,” Katara said to Suki. She shrugged. 

“On Kyoshi, everyone takes turns pulling the load. The division of labor is less gendered, but it’s not like you or I could teach Aang firebending. And Sokka or Toph will probably make dinner.” Katara scowled as she pulled packets of flour, rice, beans, and nuts from the basket of food. At the bottom, she found a small green box containing sachets of tea. Curious, she opened it to smell it, and immediately made a face. 

“Suki, this tea has gone bad. I’m gonna throw it out.”

“No, wait!” Suki grabbed the box of tea from her. “This is special tea.”

“Special tea that smells like one of Sokka’s socks?”

“I know, it smells terrible and tastes worse, but Kyoshi women have used it for generations to prevent, you know…”

“Prevent what? Platypus bear attacks? The smell would knock them right out.”

Suki laughed and said, “No, to prevent pregnancy. Kyoshi herself was said to have discovered the ko-nuk leaf’s properties. Kyoshi women, and some from neighboring towns, use it when they’re not ready to have children. A box is presented to every warrior when she leaves home to go to war.”

“So you… oh.” Katara shook her head, trying to clear away the images of why Suki would need the ko-nuk tea. Suki laughed again and tucked the small box into her waistband. 

“Let’s finish sorting through all this food. Then I can show you what the ko-nuk looks like. Who knows, you might need it eventually,” Suki said. Katara did not miss the mischievous look in her eye, but she ignored the innuendo and helped Suko sift through the unspoiled food in the Fire Lord’s pantry. 

Afterward, they changed into Fire Nation clothes and climbed the rocky hills behind the summer home. Suki pointed out the low-growing plant with a yellow streak through the center of its leaves. They picked several handfuls of leaves and returned to the kitchen, where Suki showed her how to clean, then dry the leaves by hanging them in bunches in a dark closet. 

“In a few weeks, they’ll be ready to go in a box. You can brew them now, but they won’t keep on long journeys,” Suki explained. 

“Thanks for showing me, Suki, but I really don’t think I’ll be needing them.” Katara’s cheeks had felt hot during the entire lesson, but thankfully Suki hadn’t commented. Katara rinsed the remaining batch of leaves and handed them to Suki. 

“Why? You ready to make baby airbenders right away?” Suki laughed and hung the ko-nuk leaves in the pantry. 

“Wha- No!” Katara spluttered. She bit her lip, knowing she had been a second away from asking,  _ Airbenders? Wouldn’t they be firebenders?  _ She straightened her back and said, “Aang and I aren’t involved.”

“Not yet, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s obvious, right? He’s the Avatar. You found him in the iceberg and traveled around the world with him. You’re meant to be together!” Suki brushed her hands on her skirt. “I mean, I know you’re sixteen and he’s fourteen, but surely you’ve thought about it.”

Katara felt unable to hold Suki’s gaze, so she turned to the window. In the courtyard, she saw Zuko lead Aang through a firebending technique. “I just don’t see him like that. Is that wrong?” she admitted. 

“Your feelings are your feelings, but it’s okay if they change. Once the war is over and you’re not so stressed, I think things will work out for you and Aang.” 

Katara watched Zuko correct Aang’s firebending form. She and Aang had been through hell together. Surely that counted for something. Why would they have stayed together so long if a deeper thread of love didn’t connect their hearts? 

“Maybe you’re right,” Katara admitted. She felt Suki’s hand on her shoulder. 

“There’s no rush. It’s just so obvious that you guys care for each other.”

Katara wished she could talk to her mother, or Gran-Gran, or even Aunt Wu, but for now, all she had was her friend. “Thanks again for showing me the tea. I’m gonna explore the house and find a room to claim.”

Suki nodded and headed off to find Sokka, while Katara walked down a hallway. The walls curved together, creating a feeling of a boat turned inside out, and the silence of the house surrounded her. As she walked, she thought about what Suki had said. Maybe the moment wasn’t right for Aang and her. But time could be running out, and she didn’t want to waste a second if she was only going to spend sixteen years on earth.

A large red door at the end of the hallway drew her eye. She passed smaller doors and reached out for the handle. Unlocked. She pushed it open and entered a room decorated in deep purples and magentas. A canopy bed stood stately against a far wall, while a wall of glass faced the sea. Across from the bed was a vanity with a stool tucked neatly underneath. Katara walked toward it and picked up a small framed picture of a woman with two small children on her lap. The children looked stiff and uncomfortable, but a soft smile was disguised in the woman’s gaze. At the bottom, characters spelled out: “The Fire Lady with her twin children, Zuko and Azula, summer 86 AG.” Katara quickly did the math. Zuko and Azula were five years old when this picture had been painted. 

“This was my mother’s suite,” Zuko said from the doorway. Katara turned, unsurprised. He had a habit of sneaking up on her. 

“It’s lovely,” Katara said. She set the framed picture back on the vanity. She tried to avoid looking at him, tried to keep her heart rate slow. It was just Zuko. Complicated, infuriating Zuko, who had kissed her and touched her, and-

“It can be your room if you want. I was going to take it if no one else wanted it, but you got here first.” Zuko’s voice brought her back from her memories of the air temple. She wished she could focus on the conversation, instead of living in her memories and daydreams. 

“What about your old room?” she asked. Her fingers drew lines in the dust on the vanity. 

Zuko smiled lopsidedly. “Sokka found it. He’s already playing with my old kites.”

“Let me talk to him,” Katara said with a sigh. Nothing could quell the heat inside her like having to remind her brother that he was eighteen, not six. 

“No, really, it’s okay. Being in that room would bring back too many memories anyway.” Zuko walked to the wall of glass and stared at the sea. 

“Where did the others choose?” Katara asked. She knew she was fishing for a thread of conversation to grab onto. Anything to keep her mind working instead of picturing herself wrapping her arms around him. 

“Aang said he’d sleep on Appa outside. Suki looks like she’s going to shack up with your brother. Toph wanted my fath- the fire lord’s suite.” 

“Does that mean you’re taking Azula’s room?” Katara had heard the edge in his voice. 

“No. If I’m going to avoid memories, it’s better to stay out of her room too. I’ll find a bed in the servants’ quarters.”

“I can take Azula’s room if you want this one.”

Zuko continued looking out the window. “It’s okay. I want you to have this one.”

“Why?” Katara walked to the window to stand beside him. 

He shrugged. “My mother would have liked you.” He cleared his throat. “I should go find Aang.”

“Wait,” Katara said, reaching out to stop him. Her fingers almost touched his arm, but she held back. “You said yesterday that we can’t let feelings get in the way. I agree. Aang and the war should be the first thing we think about.” She took a deep breath. “But in case we don’t make it, I don’t want to leave this world without experiencing certain things.” She forced herself to meet Zuko’s eyes and hold his gaze. 

“Things like?” he asked. 

“Things I would normally wait to experience,” she said stubbornly. “I’m just afraid of running out of time. I’d never tell Aang that. He’s got to believe he can finish this war. But I know it’s going to be nearly impossible.”

“What do you want from me?” 

“I need someone to help me experience these things.”

“Ask Aang.” He turned to leave. 

“Please, Zuko.” Katara swallowed her pride. “I don’t want him. I want you.” His eyes were unblinking as they examined her face. 

“He’s the Avatar. Why don’t you want him?”

“You know why. Aang is sweet and funny, but I just don’t see him… that. Maybe one day, but he’s still a kid right now.”

Zuko’s eyes felt like they could burn holes in her clothes. “No feelings?” he asked. 

“No feelings,” she agreed. 

“I’m doing this for you, not me,” he warned. Katara took a step back. 

“Spirits, if you aren’t interested, you can just say that,” she snapped. “I’m not going to beg you if you find me so repulsive.”

Zuko shook his head. “Trust me, I don’t find you repulsive. The exact opposite, really,” he said with a low chuckle. Before she could ask what he had meant, he closed the distance between their bodies. He stood so close that they were almost touching, and Katara could smell smoke. She looked up at him, feet frozen to the floor. His hand came up to the back of her head and he bent to kiss her. Her eyes shut and she leaned into him, her hands holding his shoulders for support. His other hand rested on her waist, and she sucked in a breath. 

. . . . .

He hadn’t realized how much he had craved her touch. His desire had manifested into nervousness until now, but kissing her broke the dam. Suddenly, he pulled away, feeling like a tide the moon had pulled back into the sea. He crossed the room and shut the door. The hinges squeaked, sealing them off from the rest of the house. 

“Get on the bed.” He watched Katara climb onto the middle of the bed, her hair loose around her shoulders with a small bun on top. It hurt how much he liked seeing her hair in Fire Nation style. He locked the deadbolt and crossed the room. He felt like two dragons warred within him: one pushing him to grab her, bite her neck, push himself between her legs; the other holding him back, knowing he had only one chance to get this right. Katara had already forgiven him once, but she was unlikely to do it again. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked. He realized he had been standing, one hand on a bedpost, looking at her. 

“Nothing.” He got on the bed and lay next to her, stroking her hair through his fingers. She pulled him toward her and threw a leg over his hip as she kissed him. His heart pounded and he tried to ignore the places where blood was rushing. Her lips were on his, hands stroking his chest and tangling in his hair, and he wrapped his arms around her, trying to touch every inch of her back and arm. He felt her muscles, lean and strong, and felt the intoxication of the moment spill over and through him like waves against sand. She pulled back and began tearing at the knot of her shirt. He noticed her fingers were shaking slightly, and he slid down the bed to trail kisses along her stomach and waist. Her skin felt cool against his lips. 

When she finally tore the knot apart, she unwrapped the fabric from her body, and Zuko’s mind unraveled. He kissed her neck and cupped her breast, squeezing gently. She gasped and he rubbed a thumb over her hard nipple. He pushed her onto her back and kissed down her neck, collarbones, and chest until he was planting kisses on each breast, still holding one and propping himself up with his free arm. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and she ran her fingers through his hair. He leaned up to kiss her lips, and her arms wrapped around him, pulling. His torso covered hers, and he felt the urge to plant a knee between her legs. Her hands tugged at the bottom of his shirt, and he leaned back to pull it off quickly. As he did, he looked down to see her huge blue eyes. She was smiling up at him, and his heart lurched. As he bent down to kiss her again, they both froze at the sound of a knock at the door. 

“Katara? Are you in there? Sokka caught some fish for dinner.” The voice was muffled through the large door, but Zuko would know it anywhere. And it was the last voice he wanted to hear at that moment. 

“Give me a sec, Aang!” Katara yelled. She fumbled for her shirt. “Where is it?” she hissed at Zuko. 

“Are you talking to me?” Aang asked. Zuko watched with horror as the doorknob turned, but the deadbolt stayed locked. 

“Nope! Just talking to myself! I’ll be right there!” Katara found her shirt on the floor by the bed. When she got it on and the knot tied, she stood and crossed to the door. Before she opened it, she motioned to Zuko to hide behind the bed. He realized she was going to answer the door while he was still in the room. He dropped from the bed as quietly as possible and pressed himself to the floor. He heard the door open. 

“You said dinner?” Katara asked. 

“Yeah. What were you doing in here? The door was locked.”

“Getting some privacy for the first time in days!” She laughed, but it sounded hollow to Zuko. 

“Oh. I can understand that,” Aang said. Zuko heard their footsteps down the hall as Aang asked, “Have you seen Zuko? I can’t find him anywhere.”

. . . . .

Suki suggested they eat dinner on the beach so they could watch the sunset, and Aang quickly agreed. Katara carried the bowls down the weathered stone steps where Sokka had gathered fuel for a fire. Aang bended a small burst of fire that the kindling quickly caught. Sokka skewered the fish on thin sticks and propped them above the fire to cook. 

“This is a really good technique for meat that isn’t greasy,” he told Suki. “Fatty meat like mooselion or seal should be smoked, so the fat doesn’t drip into the fire.”

“I know how to cook, Sokka,” Suki replied.

Sokka turned to Toph. “If you ever need to cook mooselion or seal, don’t put it on a spitroast like this.”

“I have ears,” Toph grumbled. “You just told Suki.”

Sokka threw up his hands. “Does no one want to hear my meat cooking tips?”

“You can tell me, Sokka!” Aang said brightly. “Just, you know, I don’t eat meat.”

Sokka sighed dramatically, and the group laughed. Katara noticed that even Zuko cracked a smile. 

As they waited for the fish to cook, the sun sank below the horizon, turning the sky orange and the clouds gold. 

“It’s so beautiful,” Suki said. “We don’t get sunsets this color in Kyoshi.”

“It’s the volcanos,” Zuko crossed his legs in front of him in the sand. “The fire nation is full of them. They release fumes into the sky and change the color of the sunsets.”

“You don’t see one sunset, you don’t see ‘em all,” Toph scoffed. 

. . . . .

Once the sun had set and the fish had been eaten, Katara told the story of her mother and her ghost friend, Nini. Suki followed it up with a legend about Kyoshi. They all traded stories and jokes as the moon silently rose over the island. When the fire had burned down to embers, Toph kicked sand over it and announced, “I’m going to sleep in my royal chambers. Please do not disturb this majesty until at least noon.” 

Sokka gave an exaggerated yawn. “Man, I’m gonna turn in too.”

“Me too!” Suki said quickly. “I’m also really, really tired.” Zuko noticed her wink at Katara. 

“You guys aren’t fooling anyone,” Toph replied. As the group began to trudge up the hill to the summer house, Katara hung back with Zuko. Her hair moved gently in the cool sea breeze. She wrapped her arms around herself. 

“My door will be unlocked tonight,” she said, before running to catch up with Aang and the others. Zuko watched her until she was out of sight, then looked up at the moon. 

* * *

AN: I hope the lemon comes off as realistic. My personal pet peeve is fanfictions where teenagers seem as experienced as porn stars. I modeled this scene after some of my own experiences to give it that taste of authenticity. Please let me know what you think works/doesn’t work!


	5. Chapter 5

#  Part 1: Chapter 5

/// AN: NSFW ///

* * *

Katara paced the room, nearly wearing a path in the carpet between the vanity, nightstand, and window. She had removed the loose cotton Fire Nation pants beneath the red qipao-like skirt in anticipation. Her stomach twisted, and her hands braided and unbraided her hair like anxious, fluttery birds. Candles flickered around the room, making the red and purple colors of the room glow with warmth. 

There was a light knock at the door. 

Katara hopped onto the bed and spread out on her side, her hand propping her head up. She ran a hand down her waist, smoothing her clothes. “Come in,” she said. 

“Hi, Katara, wh- what are you doing?” Aang’s startled face appeared at the door. Katara sat up and tucked her bare legs beneath herself. Aang rubbed his eyes and stared at her. 

“Nothing, I was just getting ready for bed!” she said quickly. 

“Oh, okay. Can I come in?” When Katara nodded, Aang stepped into the room and looked around. “So this was Zuko’s mom’s room, huh?” 

“Yeah, I think so.”

“It’s a lot nicer than any air temple.” Aang looked at the red and purple decorations without a hint of resentment. 

“I liked the air temples we’ve been to,” Katara said. “The Eastern one was especially beautiful.”

Aang smiled as though he had built the temple himself. “I wanted to talk to you about something,” he said, glancing down at the carpet. 

“What’s up?” Katara tried to sound casual, but she could feel a blush creeping across her cheeks. 

“When we met, I was only twelve. I was dumb and silly and also scared, but you were always there for me. And we’ve spent almost every day together since then. It’s been two years. And you might not have noticed, but I’m not the same goofball you pulled from the iceberg. I mean, I am, but I’m older now. Duh.” He slapped his arrow. “This isn’t coming out the way I wanted it to.”

“What are you saying, Aang?” Katara’s stomach roiled like she had eaten a rotten sea slug. 

“I don’t know how to say this. We kissed at the Invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. I want to be together. But things never really changed between us.”

“We’re in the middle of a war. It’s not the right time,” Katara said. “I wish I could give you a better answer.”  _ I wish I cared about you the same way you care about me _ , she thought. 

“I’m just afraid if this doesn’t work. If I can’t master all four elements in time. If I never unblock my chi. If… we don’t make it. I don’t want to leave things unsaid or undone.”

“Don’t say that, of course you’ll win the war,” Katara said instinctively. When he looked away, she realized she had said the wrong thing. “Look, Aang. I know it’s hard. I care about you, more than I’ve ever cared about anyone. I want us to win this war more than anything.” She looked at him and wished the Universe could give her a sign. Was Suki right? Did she and Aang belong together? There was only one way to really know.

“Aang…” Before she had time to think it through, Katara got up from the bed, put her hand on his shoulder, and kissed him. His lips were dry and warm and a little chapped, but they felt familiar. Like walking into her family’s hut after fishing with Sokka all day. There was no electricity like when she kissed Zuko, or thunder cracking dangerously above a mountain like Jet, but a warm, summer drizzle that soaked through her clothes. That was Aang: warmth. Comfort. A small fire burning in the hearth. 

After the war, she could see herself settling down with Aang. It would be a comfortable sort of relationship. She didn’t need passion. She had had enough turmoil in her life already, and being in a stable, safe relationship was what she needed. After the war. 

Aang pulled away, and Katara smiled. His gray-green eyes were brimming with happiness, and warmth bloomed in her chest. She loved Aang more than anyone, and all she wanted was to make him happy. All she wanted was the security that came from knowing her own destiny.

“We can talk about this again. After you beat the Fire Lord,” she said. At the mention of the war, his face wavered slightly, but he straightened his back. 

“I’ll win this war for you, Katara. I promise.” He bowed his head to her, turned, and left her room. She sighed, wiped her mouth on her skirt. 

Outside the door, hidden in the darkness of an alcove, Zuko heard Aang whistle as he left Katara’s room and walked down the hall. 

. . . . .

After dinner, Zuko took his bag to the servants’ quarters and found a small room, similar in size to his room at the air temple. His framed picture of his uncle still sat atop the nightstand in that air temple room, and he wished he had had enough time to grab it when Azula attacked. He could use a picture of Iroh right about now. 

As he sat on the lumpy mattress, he thought about the servants who would have stayed in this room while he and his family played at the beach or went to see the Ember Island Players at the theater. The servants cooked their meals, cleaned the house, and were at their beck and call. He knew being a servant to the Royal Family was considered a great honor, and that the servants were paid handsomely, but he couldn’t help but feel regret at taking them for granted. All those faces he hadn’t looked at, the names he hadn’t learned, the lives that lived parallel to his, unnoticed. 

He needed to clear his head. Pushing himself off the bed, he pulled on his boots and followed the hallway outside. The moon was just beginning to wane, and stars speckled the sky. He walked a path behind the house, one that traveled away from the beach and more inland. A mouselizard zipped across the sandy path in front of him, and a tropical lemur screeched from a nearby tree. While the daytime world settled down, the nighttime world was just beginning to wake. His uncle would have appreciated this moment. He had been happiest in the smallest moments- drinking tea, listening to music, speaking to children. Zuko had never understood how his uncle had begun to prefer those moments over his glorious military accomplishments. After Lu-Ten’s death, Iroh had changed. When Zuko was younger, he had thought the change in his Uncle Iroh was just a phase of grief, but Iroh had settled into his new life and enjoyment of small pleasures. Loss could change a person, alter their destiny. Loss created a hole in a person’s chest, one that would not heal with the best waterbending or even months that turned into years. You had to learn to live with loss. 

Zuko pictured his mother and his uncle as he turned back to the house. He lived with the dual holes in his chest, and he could only hope that no one noticed. 

When he stepped inside the house, Zuko thought of how Katara had told him that her door would be unlocked. Was that an invitation? She had to have said it for a reason. He shook his head, knowing he was overthinking. She wanted him to come to her room. So he would. 

As he walked down the hallway toward his mother’s suite, he heard voices coming from her room. The door was cracked, and he fought the impulse to peek through. He would come back later. As he turned, he heard Aang say, “...kissed at the Invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. I want to be together. But things never really changed between us.” Despite a voice in his head urging him to go back to his room and wait until Aang left, he snuck behind a statue of a dragon in an alcove near the door. He listened to their conversation, focusing on his breath. 

After a few moments, Zuko heard Aang promise Katara he would win the war for her, and Zuko had to roll his eyes. His uncle would have said it was a noble reason, but it made Zuko want to gag. The door opened and the little airbender strolled out, whistling and swinging his arms like he had already won the war. Zuko held his breath as Aang passed the alcove, but once he was far enough down the hall, Zuko opened the door to his mother’s suite and slipped inside. 

Candles flickered on the tables and vanity, and the curtains moved faintly from the wind through the open windows. Katara was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her shoulders bent inward. Zuko shut the door and locked it. “That was a nice little speech he gave you,” he muttered. 

“How much did you hear?” she asked. 

Zuko walked to the wall of glass at the far side of the room. She had unlatched the top window panels, and he could faintly hear the sound of waves crashing against the beach. “Enough.”

“You said no feelings earlier.”

“I know,” he said. “I just don’t want you to play with the kid’s feelings.” 

“I’m not.” Her voice was as sharp as a blade. “Don’t lecture me about how to feel about Aang. If I remember correctly, you spent three years trying to kill him.”

Zuko turned to face her, but words failed him. He knew she was right. He had no foot to stand on. 

“I just don’t see why you’d tell someone to wait for you while you hook up with someone else,” he said. 

“I didn’t tell him to wait for me!” she snapped. Zuko raised his hands in front of himself. 

“Got it. Not my business. Message received, loud and clear.”

“I just-” She sighed and dropped her face into her hands. “I miss my mom.” Her words hit him like a bolt of lightning when he hadn’t realized it was even storming. When she looked up again, her eyes were cloudy with unspilled tears. Zuko’s jaw clenched, and he walked to the bed to sit beside her. 

“I miss my mom too,” he admitted. 

She cried softly, and Zuko sat quietly, wondering if he should put his arm around her. Did their “no feelings” rule extend to things beyond their trysts? As they sat together, rain began to pelt the palm fronds outside the window. Zuko got up to close the windows, but Katara’s hand on his arm stopped him. 

“I like the rain,” she said simply. He nodded and sat back down. “Zuko?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me something about your mom.”

He leaned back on the bed and thought about it. “She always smelled like flowers. I don’t know what kind of flowers. It was probably perfume. And vanilla. Flowers and vanilla. She had a garden in the palace. There was always something growing in there. And she wouldn’t just tell the gardeners what to plant. She’d get on her hands and knees and dig through the soil, planting, pulling weeds, that kind of thing. It always embarrassed my father, but she only did it when no one was around.” 

Katara nodded. “My mom braided my hair every day. She used the same brush on my hair and hers. She’d brush her hair first, then mine.”

“You couldn’t afford two hairbrushes?” Zuko asked. He had known the water tribes had few trade routes, but he had never imagined them so destitute. 

“It had nothing to do with money. We just didn’t need more than one.”

“Oh.” Zuko tried to think of something to say. “She gave you that necklace, right? The blue one. Where is it?”

Katara smiled at the mention of the necklace. “I don’t wear it in the Fire Nation. I don’t want anyone to realize I’m water tribe, so I keep it in my pocket instead.” She pulled the necklace out of a pocket near the waist of her skirt. “It was actually my grandmother’s. She didn’t have any daughters, so she gave it to my mom, her daughter-in-law.” She handed it to him. 

“It’s really nice,” Zuko said, looking at the carving. 

“Master Pakku of the Northern Water Tribe made it, probably sixty years ago. He was engaged to my grandmother.”

“Wow.” He handed it back, and she slipped it back into her pocket. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

“I’m sorry about yours too. Did she die?”

Zuko sighed and looked away. His gaze fell on the framed picture of his mother holding his sister and him. “Probably. She left when I was ten. I think my father had something to do with it.”

“Are you going to look for her?

“What?” He turned to Katara in surprise. 

“After the war. You could look for her. Find out what really happened.” Katara was watching his face intently. 

“Maybe.”

“I could help you,” she said. Zuko laughed, but he could see she was serious. 

“Why would you want to do that?” he asked. 

Katara pulled a leg to her chest and rested her chin on her knee. “Because there’s a shot she’s out there, right? I’d give anything to have my mom back. It’s not possible for me, but maybe it is for you.” 

Zuko reached for her and pulled her into his arms. She responded by turning her head and kissing him, which wasn’t the reaction he had expected. He fell into her kiss, feeling her warm body beneath her thin cotton Fire Nation clothes. They sat up in the bed, but her knee was digging into his thigh, so he shifted his weight and pushed her flat onto the bed. She responded by ranking her fingernails across his back over his shirt. He moaned, low in his throat, and sat up to take his shirt off. She pulled him back to her by his shoulders, and her strength surprised him. He held his body weight off her on his hands, planted on either side of his head, but by the way her hands gripped his shoulders, he could tell she wanted more of his weight on her. 

He kissed her neck, and, holding his breath, pushed a knee between her legs like he had wanted to earlier in the afternoon. She gasped and lifted her hips toward his as he sucked her earlobe. Her hands felt like burning vises on his back, but he reveled in the feeling of her beneath him, her arms around him. Her pelvis rubbed against his thigh, and he pushed it closer against her, hearing her moan as she ground against him. He reached up to squeeze one of her breasts, kissing it over her tight shirt. He wished he could touch her more. 

One of her hands slid down his back, then across his waist, and his breath hitched. 

“Katara,” he moaned as she stroked his erection over his trousers. 

“Is this—?”

“Yes. Keep doing that.” Her second hand joined the first, and for a second, Zuko’s mind clouded, until he realized she was desperately trying to untie the knots that held his trousers closed. He rolled off her and onto his back, and he quickly undid the knots and helped her pull the pants off. He was instantly glad of the soft glow of the candles. 

“Someone shy?” Katara asked, grinning. 

“No!” he realized his hand was covering his cock self-consciously. She pulled his hand away and looked at his erection appraisingly. “You’ve never seen one before,” he said with dawning realization. 

“True. I’ve felt one, once, but I never actually saw it.”

Zuko huffed a short laugh. “You’ll have to tell me that story sometime. But for now,” he said as he pulled her hand onto his cock, “I only want you thinking about this one.” He shut his eyes as she began to stroke him. Her slim fingers felt cool against him, and he wanted this moment to last forever. He opened his eyes to see her looking at his face. 

“Am I doing this right?” she asked. 

“Gods yes.”

She bent down and kissed him, but he was too distracted to kiss her back properly. Her grip on his cock tightened, and he jerked his hips up into her hand. He raised his hands and untied her bandeau. She continued stroking him while he cupped her breasts and kissed her shoulder. 

“Katara, slow down,” he whispered. “I’m gonna…”

“What?” she asked. 

He moaned. “Don’t make me say it,” he said through gritted teeth as he tried to think of anything else besides her. 

“Say it or I go faster.”

He dropped his head back onto the pillow. “Slow down or I’m gonna come.”

She bent down to his ear, her loose hair tickling his cheek. Her lips brushed his earlobe as she whispered, “Good.” Her hand moved faster, and before he could stop himself, he came hard onto her hand and his stomach, hot white spurts as his muscles contracted. 

“Fuck,” he said as his eyes shut. He felt Katara slid off the bed and heard her rummage around in a bag, but he was too exhausted to rouse his curiosity. After a moment, she climbed back onto the bed, and Zuko felt a cloth wipe his stomach and cock clean. 

“Do all guys fall asleep instantly after they come? Or is that just you?” 

Zuko’s eyes shot open in anger until he saw she was smiling. “You know, I haven’t asked around.” He rubbed his hand across his eyes. “Give me a minute, and I’ll return the favor.”

“Favor?” she asked as she lay next to him on her side. 

“Yeah. I’ll make you come.”

She looked puzzled for a minute, then surprised. “No, that’s okay. Some other time. This is as far as I want to go right now.”

“What was that about you being afraid you’d run out of time to have these ‘experiences’?” he asked. Her face took on a sour note. 

“Well, it’s not like the world’s going up in flames tomorrow, is it?”

“No, I guess not.” He closed his eyes again, feeling his breathing slow. 

“Zuko?”

“Yeah?” 

“Can I, uh, lie with you?”

He turned to look at her. “Like, cuddle?”

Katara shrugged nonchalantly, but Zuko could see through the facade. He held one arm out. “Here,” he said. “It’s not a good hook up if you don’t cuddle afterward.” When she placed her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest, he felt, somehow, more intimate than when they were kissing or undressing each other. He stroked her hair and thought about what she had said. She would help him look for his mother. After the war. 

He softly kissed her hair and thought about how hard it was going to be for him to follow their one rule: no feelings.

* * *

AN: I’ll be honest, the part about mothers kind of just spilled out of me. This is the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing my own mom (thanks, corona), and I guess I’m missing her more than I realized. The theme of mothers/familial bond is definitely coming back later in this story. As always, any and all feedback is welcome and encouraged!

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

#  Part 1: Chapter 6

* * *

His heartbeat sounded like a slow, steady drum with her ear pressed to his chest. Her head rose and fell with his breath, but she knew she could fall asleep if she wasn’t careful. Rising to prop herself on an arm, she looked down at him. 

“I should get going,” Zuko said. Katara simply nodded and pulled her bandeau over her head, fastening the knot across her ribs. Zuko watched her silently. 

“We should do this again,” she said, pulling her hair back. She looked away, hoping she seemed indifferent. 

“Sure.” He grabbed his shirt off the floor and pulled it on. “Just tell me when your door will be unlocked. I don’t want to barge in on you and Aang.”

“About that,” she started. He put on his underclothes and trousers and tied the knots. She searched for the right words. “I think this thing, you and me,” she said, gesturing between them, “should be kept between us. Aang doesn’t need to know.”

“That’s fine.”

“But for your reference, Aang and I are not together. It’s complicated.”

“I see that.”

“I love him, okay? I’ll always love him. I found him in the iceberg. I helped him get to the north pole. I saved his life after Azula tried to kill him.”

“I know.”

“So I don’t want to hear you imply that I would ever put my interests before his.” 

“Okay.”

“Good.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I’ll see you at breakfast then.” He simply nodded and left the room without looking at her. When he was gone, she felt her chest deflate. 

. . . . 

“Higher! Kick your foot higher!”

“I’m trying!”

“Try harder then!” 

Zuko had woken Aang before the sun had even peaked above the hillside. The world was still preparing for the morning as Zuko had pushed him through spark lunges, hot squats, fire fists, and sprints while dodging Zuko’s fireball. As the sun turned the sky rosy, Zuko led him through a more advanced firebending form. The airbender would need a lot more work before he had perfected the technique though. 

Zuko demonstrated again, sweeping his arms low before pushing with his core through a high kick that released a wave of fire. Momo screeched in a nearby tree. 

“Wow, that’s amazing,” Aang said in admiration. Despite his frustration, Zuko felt his temper cool because of the airbender’s relentless optimism. 

“I know I’ve been pushing you hard, but you need to get this.” What Zuko would not tell the kid was that he was pushing him hard because Zuko needed to burn off some steam from the night before. While he didn’t want to take out his frustration on Aang, his negativity always manifested into stricter training.

“I know, Sifu Hotman.” Aang resumed his stance, swept his arms toward the group, and kicked high enough to produce a hot wave of flame. 

“Wow, I could feel that from here!” Toph said from her seat on the stairs. 

“How long have you been there?” Zuko demanded.

She yawned. “Long enough to see that you’re in an even worse mood than usual, Sparky.”

Zuko grunted in annoyance and turned back to Aang. “Focus,” he snapped at Aang, who had begun to tiptoe away. “We have a lot more training to get through this morning.”

. . . . .

Toph wandered into the kitchen where Katara was boiling water. 

“Good morning, Toph,” she said. 

“I have a question for you,” Toph replied as she slumped into a chair at the table. “Sex is supposed to make you happier, right? So what the hell have you and Zuko been doing? He’s in an awful mood.”

“Toph!” Katara whipped around and accidentally splashed herself with the boiling water. “Ow! Spirits!” She dipped her burned arm in cool water. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m blind, not deaf. This house is built on top of rock, so I can hear everything going on in your room.”

“I guess you don’t need to ask what we’ve been doing then,” Katara said. Toph laughed and propped her feet up on the table. 

“You got me there. I couldn’t hear exactly what was said at your little rendezvous, but it must have been enough to annoy Zuko into almost killing Aang with training. So, again, I ask you: isn’t sex supposed to make you happier?”

At that moment, Sokka walked into the kitchen, swinging his arms and whistling. He grabbed a peach off the counter, wiped it on his shirt, then tossed it into the air before catching it with his mouth. “Good morning,” he said through a mouth full of peach. 

Toph held out her hands. “See?” she said to Katara. “This is what I’m talking about!” 

Before Katara could answer, Suki appeared in the doorway. Wordlessly, Katara prepared a cup of ko-nuk tea and handed it to her. 

“What’s that? It smells like you brewed one of my socks into tea,” Sokka complained. Suki only giggled and sipped the hot drink. 

Katara boiled dried noodles for breakfast and added some of the fish Sokka had caught the day before. As she ladled the food into bowls and passed them around, Zuko and Aang entered the kitchen. Aang looked haggard and exhausted, but somehow, Zuko looked worse. 

“Woah! Did you guys fight off another boarwolf? You look terrible!” Sokka said. 

“Just some good training,” Aang mumbled as he dug into his noodles. “Zuko’s a great teacher.”

“I bet he is,” Toph said with a smirk. “Isn’t that right, Katara?”

“It’s great to have three master benders here,” Aang said, oblivious to Toph’s innuendo. “I bet no other Avatar had three masters all at once!” 

“And I bet no other Avatar’s masters were so close,” Toph said. Katara felt her blood boiling, and she wished she could snatch the chopsticks out of Toph’s hands. 

“You’re probably right!” Aang said cheerfully. Sokka looked between Katara and Toph. 

“What’s going on?” he asked, an eyebrow raised. 

“Nothing!” Katara and Toph said at the same instant. Zuko set his bowl on the table, empty of fish and noodles. 

“Come on, Aang. We need to get back out there.”

“Okay, okay!” Aang slurped down two more bites of noodles and followed Zuko to the courtyard. Sokka continued eyeing Katara and Toph.

“Katara, I can see that Toph is getting on your nerves, but I can’t figure out why,” he said. 

“Look, it’s probably none of our business, Sokka,” Suki said, putting a hand on his arm. Katara could see by the look in her eye that she had figured out everything. Everything. 

Sokka shrugged. “Probably that time of the month for her.” Suki punched him in the arm. “Hey, what was that for!” he asked as he rubbed his arm. 

Katara grinned and drummed her fingers on the table. “Actually Sokka, you’d know if it was that time of the month. Suki and I have synced up already.” She, Suki, and Toph laughed at his aghast face. 

He covered his ears and said, “La la la! I’m not listening!” He quickly walked out of the room, and Suki followed, still laughing. Katara turned to Toph and pulled her bowl of noodles out of her reach. 

“You have to stop staying that stuff around Aang. It’s bad enough that you know, but Suki figured it out because of your giant mouth.”

“This giant mouth would like more noodles!” Toph said, standing and reaching for her breakfast. Katara grudgingly pushed the bowl back to her. 

“Look, I don’t care if you make fun of me, but Aang would be devastated if he found out about Zuko and me. So just, make fun of me when he’s not around, okay?”

“He’d be devastated, huh?” Toph repeated as she popped a bite of fish into her mouth. 

“I think so.”

“So why don’t you stop?” Toph asked. “Why are you hooking up with Sparky behind his back?”

“It’s none of his business!” Katara snapped. “We’re not together, and I’m allowed to do what I want. I just want to make sure his feelings don’t get hurt.”

“Don’t you think his feelings will be hurt even more if he finds out you’ve been keeping this from him?”

Katara slapped her hands on the table. “It won’t matter if he doesn’t find out!” She got up and stormed out of the kitchen, knowing she needed to find some water to bend while she calmed down.

As she walked down the steps to the beach, Katara spotted Suki going through a classic Kyoshi warrior fight technique. She looked for Sokka, but her brother wasn’t nearby. The sand around Suki was kicked up and scattered, like she had gone through several rounds already. She looked up as Katara approached. 

“Sorry, I’ll find a different beach if you want to be alone to practice,” Katara said. 

“Nope, it’s fine if you want to stay.” Suki went through a few more steps and Katara pulled off her shoes and waded into the surf. The water rose along her shins, as if of its own accord, and she began bending the water around her. A thin stream flowed in a circle around her body as she concentrated on the movements. Nearby, Suki grunted as she attempted to move quickly through the sand. 

Both focused on their own fighting styles, unaware they were locked in a synchronized dance. Katara, for once, felt like she had to command, even coerce the water to bend, when normally it was so effortless. 

“Something on your mind?” Suki asked, breaking Katara’s concentration. The water she had been bending splashed back into the waves. Katara looked up and realized the sun was near its zenith. Hours had passed while she had fought with the water. 

“Yes- no,” Katara said. 

“Okay.” Suki splashed water on her face. “So, uh… you and Zuko, huh? I have to admit, I didn’t see that one coming.” When she saw Katara’s glare, she added quickly, “I’m not judging though. Your secret is safe with me.”

“That’s what Toph said too,” Katara said. She waded through the water to the sand, hot from the sun. 

Suki smiled. “I would have figured it out soon enough anyway.”

“Promise you won’t tell Sokka?”

“Cross my heart till penguins fly,” Suki said as she made a cross over her heart. “I’m going to head back to the house. You coming?”

“No, I think I’ll swim for a bit.” Katara looked back at the waves. “Actually, will you take my clothes up? Maybe I’ll swim around the cove to the west beach and take the back path up to the house.” Suki nodded, and Katara stripped to her underclothes. While Suki started up the stairs, Katara turned and dove into the surf. 

. . . . .

“I think that’s enough for today,” Zuko said as he and Aang finished their sparring. The kid was panting heavily, and he looked like he’d collapse at any moment. “Good work today,” Zuko added awkwardly. “You’re improving a lot.”

Aang bowed in Fire Nation style. “Thank you, Sifu Hotman!”

“Just in time,” Suki said from nearby as she watched Sokka sharpen his sword. “Looks like it’s going to rain any minute.”

“The storm is hours away,” Sokka argued. Zuko looked up at the clouds. They looked heavy and ominous to him, but he had never had to learn to read the weather. 

“I’ll go take a look!” Aang said as he ran to grab his glider. As he reached for it, he cried out in pain. 

“What’s wrong?” Sokka asked as the group ran to Aang. He was hunched in a little ball, both hands holding his left calf. 

“It’s just… a cramp,” he said through clenched teeth. Toph laughed and walked back to her spot under a palm tree. 

“A cramp?” Sokka shouted. “You had me scared you had been bitten by a rat viper!” He whipped his head around. “Where’s Katara?”

“Don’t bother her over this, I can take care of it. Kyoshi warriors get cramps all the time after a day of hard training. I’ll get you some water with a little salt. You’re just dehydrated,” Suki said before heading into the house. 

“Where is Katara though? I haven’t seen her since breakfast,” Sokka said. “Maybe I should go look for her before that storm gets here.”

“Sugar queen can take care of herself.” Toph crossed her arms behind her head and yawned. 

“I’ll go see if she’s at the beach,” Zuko offered. “I’ve got to rinse off all this sweat anyway.”

“I’ll help!” Aang said. He struggled to his feet, though he was clearly not putting any weight on his left foot.

“Oh no you won’t,” Suki said as she brought him a glass of water. “Just rest, okay? You’ll be fine in a few minutes. Zuko, check the west beach. She told me she was swimming there.”

Zuko nodded and jogged down the path to the beach that lay to the west of the house. Both the south and west beaches were private and only accessible from paths from the royal family’s summer house. In his childhood, he had spent most of his time with his family at the south beach, because even back then, the west beach was becoming overgrown with native flora. He picked his way over clumps of fleabane and sea oats and tried to push away the memories of playing “war on Ba Sing Se” with Azula and making sandcastles with his mother. 

“Katara?” he called as he reached the beach. He could see her treading water fifty feet from the shore, her back to him. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Katara!” 

She turned and waved to him before leisurely swimming back. She stopped when she was in waist-deep water. 

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Swimming. Come join me.” He stepped into the surf and immediately jumped out. 

“Spirits, it’s freezing on this side of the island,” he gasped. 

“Scared of a little cold, firebender?” she asked. A slight smile curled her lips, and she sank deeper into the water, turning her back to him. 

“No,” he said defensively. Pulling off his shirt and trousers, he breathed slowly, concentrating on warming his toes, and stepped back into the water. It was still a shock, but his body was more prepared this time. He reached her quickly and grabbed her around her waist from behind, using his breathing to heat the water around them. 

“How are you doing that?” she asked. 

“Impressed, waterbender?” he murmured into her ear. 

“Yeah, actually. I can change water into ice and back, and make mist and steam, but controlling the exact temperature? I’ve never been able to do that.”

“You can’t boil water?” 

She turned in his arms to face him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “If I could, do you think I’d mess with making a fire in the kitchen every time I wanted tea?”

He kissed her neck gently. “I guess not.”

“You better stop before someone sees us,” she warned. 

“Trust me, we’ve got at least a few minutes before anyone comes looking,” he said. He pulled her into deeper water and grabbed her butt to pull her onto him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, the water supporting her weight as she ran her hands through his hair and kissed him. Her lips met his again and again, and he tightened his hold on her legs. She was toned from years of waterbending, and as he kissed her, he wanted more, to somehow get even closer to her, even as their chests pressed together. Nearby, drops of rain began pelting the water, and he walked farther into the ocean. The waves came up to their necks, and he slid his hands up her back. She kissed him more desperately like she couldn’t get enough of the taste of him. The rain began falling faster, and she suddenly pulled away from him. 

“Afraid of getting wet?” he teased. 

“No… did you hear someone call my name?” A far-off thunderbolt added a cymbal to the percussion of the rain. Suddenly, a blue glider sailed overhead. 

“Katara! Zuko! Where are you?” 

“It’s Aang.” Katara pushed off Zuko and circled her arms above her head to shoot a cylinder of water up from the waves to get his attention. “Down here, Aang!” 

Zuko swam back to shore. The rain pelted him, harder than water should. Nearby, a small ball of ice hit the sand, and he grabbed his clothes off the ground.

“Come on!” he shouted to Katara. “It’s starting to hail!” 

She swam back to the beach, and Aang landed his glider next to them. They began the trek back to the house, Aang chattering nonstop like a lemur. 

“...got a charley horse, Suki said. I came out looking for you as soon as I could. What were you guys doing out there?”

“Let’s just get inside, then we can talk,” Zuko heard Katara say. When they finally reached the front hallway, all of their hair and clothing were drenched. 

“Give me a sec,” Katara said. She moved her hands in front of her chest, and the water lifted from their soaking bodies. She directed it out the door. 

“Thanks.” Zuko dressed and started off to his room. He needed a break from the little airbender. 

“Sifu Hotman, where are you going? Suki already made dinner!” Aang called. At that moment, Zuko’s stomach growled. He weighed his options for a second, but then he sighed and followed Katara and Aang to the kitchen. 

. . . . .

“It’s really coming down out there,” Sokka said as he looked out the kitchen window. Hail pelted the roof with a rhythmic thump thump thump.

“Summer storms are pretty common here,” Zuko said. Katara watched his face, but he seemed uninterested in the rain as he played with his knife. 

“We never had storms like this at the Southern Air Temple!” Aang said as Momo screeched and burrowed into his shirt at the next crack of thunder. 

Toph laid her head on the table. “Just what the world needs. More water.” Lightning flashed and briefly lit the room in a bluish-white light as thunder boomed. 

“It sounds like it’s right above us!” Sokka yelled. 

Toph leapt to her feet. “Lightning just struck a tree, not thirty feet from here! I think the tree is on fire!”

“In this rain? That’s impossible.” Suki got up and looked out the window. 

“These feet don’t lie!” Toph shouted as she ran from the room. The rest of the group was quick on her heels. 

Outside, a palm tree was engulfed in flames, and the red sparks threatened to jump to a nearby tree. Katara saw Zuko shift into his firebending stance, and she bended the falling rain around them into a large bubble. 

“Just tell me when!” she shouted to Zuko. He took a deep breath, lunged, and swept his arms over his head and down to the ground. 

“Now!” The fire receded, and Katara used the bubble of rainwater to quench the rest of the flames. They both panted from the exertion and adrenaline. Toph turned toward Suki. 

“I hope you learned not to second-guess my feet,” she said, crossing her arms. 

Suki sheepishly laughed. “I sure won’t make that mistake again.”

“Nice job, you two,” Sokka said to Katara and Zuko. “Team Avatar strikes again!” Overhead, lightning cracked the sky. “But I think we should get inside before we get struck ourselves!”

As they all made their way inside to the atrium, Katara and Aang bended the water out of everyone’s clothes. 

“Are other houses in danger?” Aang asked as he looked out the open door. 

Zuko shook his head. “We’re the highest point on the island. We used to have lightning rods to prevent stuff like this from happening.”

Toph yawned and stretched her arms above her head. “Well, I think that’s enough excitement for one night,” she said. “Good night. Don’t bother me.” She headed to the Fire Lord’s suite. 

“What if this happens again tonight?” Suki asked. 

“Zuko and I will stay up to watch,” Katara said, the words leaving her mouth before she had thought them through. “We’ll take shifts and wake up the other if lightning strikes another tree.”

“Are you sure?” Suki looked concerned. 

“Thanks, guys,” Sokka said. “They’ll be fine, Suki. The storm won’t last more than an hour or two anyway.”

She shrugged, and said, “I’ll make you some black tea.”

“Do you want me to watch with you?” Aang asked. Katara could see the exhaustion from the day’s training written on his face. 

“Go to bed. Seriously, we’ll be fine. Two master benders, right?” she said. Zuko nodded curtly. 

“Wake us up if anything happens,” Sokka said as he draped an arm around Aang’s shoulders and walked with him out of the atrium. 

* * *

AN: When I was younger, I was steadfastly a fan of Tokka. Now though, I realize that feeling was born from the fact that the writers of the show didn’t give Suki her credit. I want to flush her out more, almost as if she’s an OC. Is this working for you? Let me know with a review or PM!


	7. Chapter 7

#  Part 1: Chapter 7

AN: Welcome to the last chapter of Part 1! I’m going to be posting once a week from here on (to save my sanity). This chapter is very NSFW. In the vein of my writer friend Cgreene, I’m going to set the mood with a poem: 

“I do not know where either of us can turn

Just at first, waking from the sleep of each other.

I do not know how we can bear

The river struck by the gold plummet of the moon,

Or many trees shaken together in the darkness.

We shall wish not to be alone

And that love were not dispersed and set free—

Though you defeat me,

And I be heavy upon you.”

_ -Louise Bogan, Leave-Taking _

* * *

Katara and Zuko sat on pillows in the atrium in front of the open door. Blankets covered their shoulders, and cups of tea warmed their hands and faces. The thunder had crashed more faintly as the night grew older, until eventually only the sound of the beating rain reached them. 

“I think we’re in the clear,” Zuko said. 

“I think you’re right,” Katara replied as she sipped her tea. The rain had lulled her into a half-trance but she felt far from sleep. “Zuko?”

“Hm?”

“Are you tired?”

“No.”

“Okay. I want to tell you something. There’s something I haven’t experienced yet.”

“Yeah?”

Katara took a deep breath. “I haven’t had sex. Not really, anyway.”

“Not really? Sounds like there’s a story there.”

Katara sipped her tea and wished she hadn’t said anything. She had dug a hole already though, so she may as well dig deeper. “I might have done stuff with Jet. It just doesn’t feel the same though.”

“The same as what?” Zuko asked. 

Katara put her cup down and turned to face him. “With you. Everything feels different. It’s more than just curiosity. I felt like Jet was just doing what he wanted. With you, it feels like I’m taking as much as I’m giving.”

“You aren’t giving or taking anything, Katara,” Zuko whispered. His hand brushed a wisp of hair from her face, and his touch sent fireworks through her body. 

“Have you done it before?” she asked. 

He nodded. “With my girlfriend- I mean, my ex-girlfriend. Mei.”

Katara noticed a wistfulness in his voice, and she pushed down a spark of anger. “Great. So we’ve both done it with our exes.”

“I thought you said you hadn’t experienced it?” Zuko said. 

“Forget it,” Katara said. She started to stand, but Zuko grabbed her wrist. His palm felt hot, like he had warmed it near a bonfire. 

“Katara, stop. I want this too.”

“I never said I wanted it!” she snapped. Despite all their time together, she knew she could never let down her guard around Zuko, even if she wanted to.

Zuko held up his hands. “Sorry. I guess I just assumed. You know, since you brought it up and all.” He ran a hand through his tousled hair. “If you ever want to, though, just let me know.” He visibly swallowed. “I’d be interested in doing that. With you.”

She scowled. “Because you can’t get it with Mei anymore?” she asked caustically. 

He shook his head and said, “No. It’s like what you said about Jet. It’s different with you. I know you’re doing it because you want to, not out of a sense of duty.”

“Is that what Mei was like?” Katara asked, sitting back down. 

Zuko shrugged and looked out the open door, where rain still fell steadily. “That’s the feeling I got, honestly. Like she only barely tolerated me.”

“Why’d you stay with her then?”

“I guess because it was expected of me. Date a nice Fire Nation girl. Maybe even marry her eventually. Mei comes from a well-respected family, and she’s friends with my sister. It just made sense.”

“I’d never date you just because it made sense,” Katara said scornfully. 

He looked back at her and smirked. “You’d never date me anyway.” The words hit her like one of Mei’s throwing stars. 

“You know that would kill Aang,” she argued. “I never want to do anything to hurt him.” 

“Always putting Aang before yourself. What a good friend,” Zuko said sarcastically. 

“Well, it’s not like you’d ever date a water tribe peasant,” she shot back. “I don’t even know why we’re arguing about this. We obviously don’t want to date each other.”

Zuko sighed. “I’m just tired. I’m going to go to bed.” Katara waited to see if he would ask her to come with him, but he was as silent and as cold as an iceberg. As he stood and picked up his pillow and empty cup, he said, “Good night, Katara.”

“Night, Zuko.” She watched him walk away and wished she knew the words to get him to stay. 

. . . . .

“How many times did you and Zuko save the world last night?” Suki asked. She and Katara sat on the steps leading to the patio where Aang and Zuko practiced. 

Katara rolled her eyes. “We didn’t. No more lightning strikes. We just sat and talked.”

“Talked. Sure,” Suko said. She pointedly sipped her ko-nuk tea. 

“I’m serious. We didn’t do anything.”

“Okay.” Suki pointedly avoided Katara’s eyes as she watched the boys firebend. “I’m just saying, it’s okay to play the field before you settle down.”

Katara groaned. “I don’t know what you’re saying, and I don’t think I want to.”

Suki laughed. “You’re allowed to do whatever you want with Zuko before you start dating Aang,” she whispered. Zuko and Aang were not paying attention, but Katara appreciated Suki’s discretion, even if her nosiness got on her nerves. Still, the validation was nice to hear. 

“Yeah. Everything is just confusing right now.” Katara pulled her leg to her chest and rested her chin on her knee. The stress of the war was keeping her from being able to see Aang as anything more than her friend. Zuko was a temporary distraction from the war, but once the war was over, she wouldn’t need him anymore. Her love for Aang would be enough then. 

Suki patted her back. It could have felt condescending, but from Suki, the gesture was sweet. Sokka and Toph walked out of the house and sat near them. Sokka’s hair was still bushy from sleep, and he yawned. 

“What’s the plan for today?” he asked no one in particular. 

“Zuko trains Aang until he’s ready to keel over, Katara acts bitchy, and you and Suki make eyes at each other all day long,” Toph grumbled. 

“Hey! I do not act bitchy!” Katara said as she reached over to slap the girl’s leg. 

“And how do you know if Suki and I make eyes at each other! You’re blind!” Sokka added indignantly. 

Toph shrugged. “I guess I just assumed. Am I wrong?”

“Not really,” Katara said as she laughed at her brother. 

“What’s everyone talking about?” Aang asked as he hopped off his air scooter. 

“Not much,” Toph said. “Just getting through the monotony of the days.”

“They wouldn’t be monotonous if you all were getting ready,” Zuko said. A thin layer of sweat already shone across his forehead. Katara looked down and played with the hem of her skirt. 

“Get ready for what, o princely one?” Sokka asked. 

“The comet is coming in three days!” Zuko said, punctuating each word by pounding a fist into an open palm. His shoulders dropped and he looked at each of them in turn. “Why are you all looking at me like I'm crazy?”

“About Sozin's Comet ... I was actually gonna wait to fight the Fire Lord until after it came,” Aang admitted. “I still haven’t mastered earth or firebending yet.”

“The whole point of fighting the Fire Lord before the Comet was to stop the Fire Nation from winning the War, but they pretty much won the War when they took Ba Sing Se. Things can't get any worse,” Katara added. She tried to smile encouragingly at Aang, but he wouldn’t look her in the eye. 

“It can always get worse.” Zuko sat on the steps and told them his father’s plan to wipe out the earthbending continent by burning towns, crops, and people to the ground. Immediately, the mood of the group shifted from their jovial bickering to a black despair like none of them had ever felt before. Katara’s eyes began watering, and she grabbed Suki’s hand. 

“I know you're scared, and I know you're not ready to save the world, but if you don't defeat the Fire Lord before the comet comes, there won't be a world to save anymore,” Zuko said as he finished telling them his father’s plan. 

Aang walked away and sank to the ground, his arms wrapped around himself. “This is really, really bad,” he said as he rocked himself. Katara couldn’t even imagine the pressure he was under. Being the Avatar was a role she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy. She got up and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. 

“Aang, you don't have to do this alone. We’re all here with you,” she said. 

“Yeah! We’ve got your back, twinkletoes,” Toph added. “Together, we have a good shot at taking the Fire Lord down!”

“Alright!” Sokka stood. “Team Avatar is back! Air. Water. Earth. Fire. Fan and sword!” He pointed to each of them in turn, and despite their dread, they all laughed. 

“Fighting the Fire Lord is going to be the hardest thing we've ever done together, but I wouldn't want to do it any other way,” Aang said, looking at them all. “I couldn’t ask for better friends.” He took Katara’s hand and squeezed it as they all met in a big group hug, and that simple gesture gave her the smallest hope to cling to.

. . . . .

After a full day of training and preparing for the comet, the group was exhausted, hungry, and short-tempered. The weight of the world rested on their shoulders, and each one was acutely aware of how any mistake could be disastrous for the fate of the world. Their stress that night culminated in one main question: what to have for dinner. 

“We’re absolutely  _ not _ going into town for dinner!” Suki insisted. “I got vegetables yesterday!” The group sat in a circle in the courtyard, all panting from their latest round of sparring. 

“We need real food! Not vegetables with dried noodles and rice that’s eight years old!” Sokka argued. 

“Going into town right now would be stupid,” Katara said. “This is the last possible time we’d want to be recognized!”

“Well, I’m not making dinner! We always divide up dinner chores based on who had the least busy day. And we all had a busy day.” Sokka clutched his stomach dramatically. “Someone better figure out dinner soon, or we’ll starve to death before the Fire Lord even has a chance to kill us!”

Zuko stood up. He had seen Aang’s face, already drawn from guilt and exhaustion, fall with a look of dread at the mention of the Fire Lord. “I’ll make dinner,” he said. “Now all of you please shut up.” He stormed into the house and began slamming pots and pans onto the stove. He blasted a ball of fire into the belly of the stove, and jumped when he saw Katara standing in the doorway. 

“Need any help?” she asked. 

“Sure.” He grabbed a bag of rice as water began to boil. “Can you cut up some vegetables? I’m making stir-fry.”

Wordlessly, she got a knife and began chopping the carrots, onion, and bok choy Suki had bought at the market. They worked together quickly and efficiently, and Zuko appreciated the silence. It was easier to pretend the end of the world wasn’t days away. 

He sautéeded a leg of chickenhorse in the wok and added the vegetables while Katara stirred the pot of rice. 

“I didn’t know you knew how to cook,” she said. 

“My uncle and I had to figure it out when we lived in Ba Sing Se.” 

“When your uncle had a tea shop?”

Zuko nodded. “The Jasmine Dragon.” He added salt to the food. “If I ever see my uncle again, I won’t take him for granted. He cared about me when no one else did.” 

As they finished making the meal, Katara opened one of the kitchen cabinets to get clean bowls and chopsticks. She had to stretch to reach them, and Zuko silently admired her strong and straight body. 

“Can you help? Sokka put them on the highest shelf for some reason,” she said. Zuko walked over and stood behind her, pressing himself into her back as he reached for the bowls. He felt her stiffen, and hoped he hadn’t overstepped. As he put the bowls on the counter and stepped back, she turned to face him and pulled him by the hips closer to her. 

“Will you come to my room tonight?” she asked breathlessly. 

“No, come to mine. It’s farther from the others’,” he said. He pointed to a door that led to the servants’ quarters. “Just follow the hallway. Farthest door on the left.” She nodded, and he wished he knew what she was thinking, but, as always, her motivations eluded him. 

. . . . .

_ No feelings _ , she thought to herself as they served dinner to the group.  _ This will pass. If we survive the war, I’ll be with Aang. That’s what the universe wants. Zuko has only ever been a distraction, a way to keep myself from thinking about the war. Aang is my true love. But tonight, I’m master of my own destiny.  _

They all ate quietly, too spent and anxious to make jokes or tell stories. Aang sat apart from the group, and her heart ached at seeing him alone, but she knew he needed space. 

Finally, Toph spoke up. “After we win the war, I’m going home for a bit. Just to become the first person to be four-time champion of Earth Rumble!” The others looked at her like she had started waterbending. “And then,” she continued. “I’m going to visit Iroh in his Ba Sing Se tea shop. What about you guys?”

“I’m going to visit Kyoshi Island and see my village, but then I’m going to travel the world helping war refugees!” Suki said. She placed her hand on Sokka’s leg and looked at him. 

He sighed. “I guess I’m going to Kyoshi Island and then helping refugees. But only after I get to visit the Southern Water Tribe and see my dad again!” Suki beamed at him. 

“I’m going to try to restore my honor,” Zuko said. “I need to redeem myself in my uncle’s eyes.” 

“What about you, Aang? What are you going to do after we win the war?” Katara asked. 

He shrugged and pushed his vegetable stir-fry around with his chopsticks. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think about the group breaking up.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me. No matter what you decide, I’ll be there with you,” Katara promised. Aang gave her a weak half-smile. 

“Yeah!” Suki added. “You can rebuild the world! If it includes helping people, I’m in. Team Avatar isn’t going anywhere!”

“Didn’t you  _ just _ hear me say four-time Earth Rumble Champion?” Toph asked. When Katara lightly smacked her, she added, “Okay, okay! I’ll help you too. But early next spring, I’m heading back to Gaoling to defend my title.”

“I couldn’t ask for better friends,” Aang said. He stood and bowed to them. “I’m going to meditate on the balcony. If anyone needs me, that’s where I’ll be.” Momo climbed onto his shoulder, and they walked into the house. 

. . . . .

Katara lay in bed until all she could hear was the creak of the old beams and the whistle of the wind through the palms outside the window. Everyone had gone to bed soon after dinner, each needing to keep company with their own thoughts. When she was sure everyone was asleep, she rolled over and lit a candle on her nightstand. She stood and pulled on a red silk robe that had been hanging in the closet before slipping quietly out the door with the candle. 

The candle cast long shadows along the walls, and Katara pulled the robe tightly around herself. She heard a gentle snoring as she passed the Fire Lord’s suite where Toph slept and silently thanked the spirits that she was already asleep. With any luck, Toph would stay asleep till morning. Katara reached the kitchen and walked down the hallway Zuko had pointed out while they were making dinner. All the doors were shut, except for a door left ajar at the end of the hall. A yellow light spilled from the room, and as she approached it, Katara whispered, 

“Zuko?”

“In here,” he said. She entered the room and saw Zuko sitting on the floor in front of three candles. She put her candle on a shelf near the door. 

“Are you meditating? Should I come back later?” she asked. She hoped he hadn’t changed his mind about inviting her.

“No. I was just waiting for you, and thinking.” He looked her up and down. “You’re wearing my mother’s robe.”

Katara looked down at herself. Of course the red silk robe hanging in the closet of the Fire Lady suite would be the Fire Lady’s. What had she been thinking?

“I’m sorry, I should have realized,” she said. 

“It looks good on you,” Zuko said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it definitely feels weird to be attracted to someone wearing my mom’s clothes,” he added with a low chuckle. 

“Would it be better if I took it off?” she asked, lowering it to expose a bare shoulder. She held her breath, worried he might think her too forward. Instead, Zuko blew out the three candles in front of him. The room fell darker, with only the candle Katara had brought still burning. He grabbed her by the waist and looked down at her single bare shoulder. 

“I know I see your shoulders everyday, but spirits, you look amazing right now,” he whispered as he bent to kiss her shoulder. He slowly slid the rest of the robe off her body, and stood back to look at her. She resisted the urge to cover herself, until he said, “You’re so beautiful. Katara, I want you so much.”

Instead of responding, she untucked the hem of his shirt from his trousers, hoping he’d take the hint. He immediately stripped completely and bent to kiss her. She felt dizzy with anticipation. This was what she had been lacking during her quick interaction with Jet. 

Zuko pushed her toward the bed, and she sat. He knelt between her knees and continued kissing her and she stroked his neck and scarred cheek. He reached up and ran a thumb over her nipple, and she gasped into his mouth. He used his other arm to grab her around her waist and back and lift her from the bed, resettling her beneath him as he lay on top of her. He bit and sucked on her neck, more fiercely than he had ever done before. 

“Don’t leave any marks,” she said through the fog that clouded her brain. He switched to kissing, but not before growling low in his throat from frustration. 

“You drive me crazy,” he whispered as he squeezed her breast. “I could never get enough of you.” 

She pulled her hips up, adjusting until he was between her thighs, and said, “Me either.” Before she could think, he kissed her roughly, pushing his tongue into her mouth, and she responded by biting his bottom lip. 

“Zuko, Zuko,” she whispered when she pulled away from his kiss and ran her hands through his hair. He leaned down and gently bit her nipple, making her gasp and arch her back. “I need you. Inside me. Please.”

He pulled away, and for a second, she was afraid she’d lost him for good. “I don’t want to get you pregnant,” he said slowly. 

“Suki has tea for that,” Katara replied. 

Zuko laughed gruffly. “I guess if she’s managed not to get pregnant for this long, she must know what she’s talking about.”

Katara playfully hit his chest with the palm of her hand. “Hey, that’s my brother you’re talking about.”

“I know. And I’d rather we stop talking about Suki and Sokka right now.” He kissed her lips and cheek and even the hair that fell over her shoulder. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” she said. She reached down and felt his hard erection. 

“You, uh, did this with Jet? So you know what to expect?” 

Katara’s mind brought her back to the wooden floor of a treehouse, deep in the forests outside Gaipan. After the first painful thrust, she had pushed Jet off her, saying she couldn’t do it. Jet, despite all his problems, had said he would never force her if she changed her mind. Two spots of blood hit the floor of the treehouse as she had left. 

“Yes, I know what to expect,” she said, looking into Zuko’s eyes. They looked brown in the dim candlelight, not the fiery amber they were in the sun. 

“Are you ready?” he asked as softly as a breath. She nodded and shifted her hips, screwing her eyes shut. The first thrust hurt like hell. 

. . . . .

She felt warm and wet, and Zuko felt like he could come in less than ten seconds if he wasn’t careful. He didn’t want this to end, not with Sozin’s Comet and the death or rebirth of the world only two nights away. He looked down at Katara, wanting to kiss her, but with horror he saw the pain held in the creases of her face. 

Immediately, he sat up. “Gods, what’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” 

She grimaced. “A little. I know it’s supposed to get better though. I want to keep going.”

“What?” Zuko asked incredulously. 

Katara sighed. “I’ve heard it can hurt the first few times, but if you push through it, it’ll feel fine.”

“Spirits, I’m not going to do this if you’re in pain.”

“Seriously, Zuko, it’s fine. I really do want to keep going.” 

Zuko thought quickly about something the sailors he had traveled with had told him about. When they had had too much rum and Uncle was not nearby to chastise them for filling young Zuko’s mind with images of sex, the sailors would whisper about the magic a clever tongue could do to a woman. He looked at Katara and said, “Can I try something?” When she nodded, he continued. “Shut your eyes and lie back.”

Zuko kissed her breast again, but instead of leaning up to suck her neck, he trailed light kisses down her ribcage and stomach until he reached between her legs. He gently pushed the skin of her belly up with the palm of his hand, and bent down to lick the ember that sparked beneath the hood. She tasted salty and smelled like an old forest, but the twitch in her stomach muscles gave him all the reward he could need. 

He continued stroking the ember with his tongue, varying the speed and pressure until she was quietly moaning. She had not stopped twitching, as if her body couldn’t contain the feeling inside her. After a moment, he popped his middle finger into his mouth, and carefully slid it into her wet slit up to the first knuckle. She gasped and bit her own arm as her back arched. He gently rubbed the inside of her slit with his finger while focusing his tongue on her ember. He felt her leg muscles tense, and after a minute, she whispered, “Ah, Zuko!” Her lower body twitched spasmodically, and he knew he had found the magic the sailors had told him about. 

He leaned up and wiped his mouth on the bed sheet before Katara pulled him onto her again, kissing his face and stroking his shoulders. 

“What was that?” she asked breathlessly. “I’ve never felt like that before.”

“That’s how you made me feel the other night,” he said. “That’s the little death.”

“I want to try again.”

Although flattered by her eagerness, Zuko rubbed his jaw, just starting to feel sore. “Can you give me a minute?”

“No, I mean, I want to try sex again.” Her eyes practically glowed in the candlelight. “I have a good feeling about this.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

. . . . .

Katara’s mind still swam in the waves of the small death, flowing from her center and radiating outward to her fingers and toes. Her body felt more relaxed than it had in years, and she wanted to hold that feeling close. 

As Zuko thrust, his cock slid in easily, filling her with a new, strange sensation. It felt warm and solid, and she angled her hips, wrapping her calves around Zuko’s thighs to pull him in. 

“You feel amazing,” he whispered. 

“You do too,” she said. Honesty tasted as sweet as honey on her lips. 

“Can I… keep going?” he asked. 

“Gods, please,” she begged. He moved slowly, drawing out of her and pushing in like a gentle tide, until the spark that burned in her made her tighten her legs around him. His breath was hot against her neck, and she wished she could somehow get even closer, to hold him tighter, to make the moment last longer than one night. “Zuko, stop,” she said. 

“What? Does it hurt again?” Zuko froze, but remained in their intimate position. Katara squirmed out from under him and pushed him so he lay flat on the bed. 

“No, it feels amazing. It’s my turn.” She quickly straddled him and, after fumbling with the position, began moving on top of him. Her excitement grew as she watched his eyes shut, his mouth open, looking for the world like he was in the deepest pain, when she knew he was feeling anything but. 

Her fingers reached beneath her to find the spot that had burst into flames under Zuko’s tongue, and Zuko gripped her thighs as she rocked. The bed banged into the wall, and Zuko’s eyes flew back open. 

“Shh! You’ll wake the whole house!” he said. 

She slowed, and bent to kiss his neck and earlobe. He moaned and squeezed her breasts as she bent over him. She reveled in the feeling of having him completely in her control, of feeling him beneath her, yet getting to hold him and know she was flooding his senses with pleasure. She ran a hand up his neck and gently traced the outline of his scar. His skin was hot, and as she moved, she could feel something bubbling up from his chest. 

“Katara!” he said as he grabbed her around the waist and pushed them until they were standing next to the bed. He grabbed her wrist and spun her until she faced the wall and used his knee to force her legs apart. His impatience was infective, and she gasped when he entered her from behind. Pressed toward the wall, his mouth was hot on the back of her neck when he pushed her hair over her shoulder. While he couldn’t get as deep, the angle made light explode behind her eyes. One of his hands gripped the base of her neck, while the other wrapped around her stomach to hold her as close to him as possible. 

“Don’t stop,” she whispered, but he only moaned as he pushed into her, his burning body pressing hers against the cool, stone wall. Caught as she was, she felt like she could only relax and focus on the sensations that were playing across her entire body. It could never be sustainable.

She lifted her arms and used all her strength to push off the wall, dislodging Zuko from his hold. 

“On the bed, now.” She pointed to emphasize her command. He lay down, but when she tried to straddle him again, he used his weight to pin her underneath him. 

“You’re not the only one who has demands,” he growled as he pushed inside her again. She grabbed the back of his head and kissed him, lifting her legs to wrap around his waist as his pace increased. He was panting and his thrusts became more erotic. 

“Katara, I need to-”

She kissed his lips again and said, “I know. I want it.”

He bit her shoulder as he sped up, muffling his moans into her sweat and skin as he pushed inside her again and again. She felt his breath catch and knew he was coming, his body meeting hers in an ancient dance. His arms shook, and he continued thrusting as she stroked his back. 

Eventually, he slid next to her, his chest heaving with his panting breaths. She lightly kissed his closed eyelids. When he looked at her, she saw the loss behind his amber eyes. She kissed him again, and stroked his cheek. 

“We only had one rule,” she said. 

“Looks like we both lost the game then,” he said ruefully. She opened her mouth to deny it, but she shut it again. Instead, she got up, retrieved the red robe from the floor, and put it on. 

“I’ll see you in the morning, Zuko.” She picked up the candle she had placed on the shelf, before her nerves had been lit like the sun. Before the world had spun on its axis, leaving her stuck between the past and the future. 

As she walked back to the suite that had become hers, she held the robe closed across her body. She paused, briefly, as she passed the glass door that led to the balcony where Aang had said he’d be. She held the candle up to the glass, and she could see the outline of his thin shoulders and back on the balcony. She watched his shoulders rise and fall slightly with his breath, and she leaned her forehead against the cool glass. She loved Aang, and she would always love Aang. In two days, the universe would tell her if it was meant to be. She lowered the candle, and returned to her room. 

END OF PART ONE

* * *

AN: The beginning of this chapter’s sex scene is a page straight out of my own life book. Vaginismus plagued me for the first 2 years of my sex life. What finally cured me? Always receiving oral before sex. If sex is painful, talk to your doctor! Also, if you have PIV sex and you are the person with the V, make sure you pee immediately afterward (even if using a condom!) to prevent urinary tract infections. Katara did not do this or wear a condom because it’s fiction, and in fiction, we pretend UTIs and STIs don’t exist.


	8. Chapter 8

#  Part 2: Chapter 8

AN: Sorry for the slow post! I was traveling, but we’re back. I’m using the word “Sho-ren” as a substitute for “Ms” (both married and unmarried) and Xiansheng as a substitute for “Mr” in this universe. They’re (very) loosely adapted from Chinese, but if you have a different suggestion, please post a review or PM me! I hope you enjoy Part 2 of Steam Rising. 

"Ember of love still glows and lingers

Deep at the red heart's smouldering core;

With the sudden passionate throb of yore

We shook as our eyes and clinging fingers

Met once only to meet no more."

_ Mathilde Blind, “Yea, The Roses Are Still On Fire” _

* * *

Zuko stepped onto the gangplank of the Fire Nation Royal Yacht. The salty breeze whipped his hair across his face, and he pushed it out of his eyes to look out over Ember Island. The sun was setting, casting a red glow across the tops of the hills. It had been over five years since he had last been here. Life had changed, and nostalgia wedged itself beneath his ribs. 

“Zuko?” someone called for him beneath the deck. “Are we leaving this awful ship yet?”

“Yes, we’re here,” he said. He turned back and reached out. A pale, slender hand took his. 

“Finally. A boring trip to a boring island.” 

Nearby, a Fire Nation guard blew a horn in the direction of the gathering Ember Island crowd. “Announcing Fire Lord Zuko, and his companion, Sho-ren Mai of the Fire Nation!”

Zuko started down the gangplank with Mai’s arm looped through his. 

“At least this time we won’t have to stay with Lo and Li,” Mai whispered, and Zuko stifled a grin. 

“Remember that awful party we went to?” he whispered back. She covered her laughter with her hand as they walked past civilians with their heads respectfully bowed. 

“Gods, the worst party ever,” she said. “I think that was our first breakup.”

“Second, at least,” Zuko argued playfully. “It’ll be nice to see everyone again. I haven’t seen most of them since the end of the war.”

Mai acted like she hadn’t heard as she turned to one of their attendants. “Fetch our bags. And find me a cool drink immediately. This island is far too humid.” She dismissed him with the wave of her hand. 

“We can get a drink once we get to the house,” Zuko noted as they began their steps up to the summer house. 

“Zuko, you think I can make it that long?” Mai laughed. “Do you want me to die of dehydration before we even start this vacation? It’s bad enough that this island is too rocky for palanquins.” She glanced over her shoulder and snapped, “Where’s that drink I asked for?” Zuko noticed a young girl with huge, frightened eyes. 

“I’ll go check, m’lady,” she stammered before running off. 

“You’ve never had a problem ordering people around,” Zuko teased her quietly. 

Mai smiled and lifted her chin. “Why should I? That’s what these people are here for.”

#  . . . . .

“Sparky!” Toph cried as she threw her arms around Zuko. She had already arrived at the Fire Nation summer house, and she wasted no time warmly greeting him once he and Mai arrived. 

“Uh, hello, Master Toph,” he said, patting her back awkwardly. He hadn’t seen her since his coronation after the end of the One Hundred Year War. “You look well.”

“Cut it out with the formalities, Zuko. It’s me! You better get back to your old self before the others get here.”

Zuko grinned and turned to dismiss the attendants that stood near them in the atrium. “Please leave us. This week we will not need any help.”

“Sire?” Ming asked from her place against the wall.

“This is what we discussed, Ming,” Zuko said. The middle-aged woman dressed in grays and reds had been his head attendant since his coronation, and she had staunchly disagreed with his decision to dismiss the servants for the week he planned to spend with his old friends. As the servants filed out, followed last by Ming, Mai cleared her throat. 

“Toph, you remember Mai? My fiancée,” Zuko said, turning back to the earthbender.

“Sure,” Toph said, sticking out her hand. “How’s it hanging, Mai?”

Mai, to Zuko’s embarrassment, ignored Toph’s outstretched hand and bowed to her in Fire Nation tradition, saying, “It is good to see you again, Sho-ren Toph. News of your… professional exploits have even reached us in the Fire Nation capital. You are quite accomplished.” While her words were polite, Zuko, from knowing Mai almost his entire life, could hear the undercurrent of disdain in her voice. 

Toph grinned as though she didn’t notice. “Don’t worry, I’ll regale you all with stories about the Earth Rumble Championships once everyone gets here. Actually, I believe I hear them now.” She walked outside, and Zuko and Mai followed. Zuko couldn’t hear anything except the sea breeze through the palms, the faraway sounds of servants heading to town, and the crash of waves on the beach. The little earthbender must be losing it. As he turned to ask what she had heard, Appa’s roar bellowed through the air. 

“Flame-o, hotmen!” Aang called as the giant air bison landed with an earth-trembling pound. “Back in the Fire Nation at last!” 

“Avatar Aang!” Zuko called, waving. Aang waved back and hopped off Appa’s head. In the saddle, Zuko could see the rest of their group: Sokka, Suki, and, of course, Katara. Seeing her blue eyes and bright smile, Zuko’s stomach twisted like he had swallowed raw fish. Her blue necklace sparkled in the sunlight, and he felt a pang of nostalgia as memories crashed back into his consciousness. 

Mai’s hand tightened around his arm, and he led her to the air bison, where the group was unloading the saddle. 

“Zuko! Catch!” Sokka called as he prepared to toss down a leather pack. 

“You’re asking the Fire Lord to help you unpack a beast of burden?” Mai interrupted. 

Sokka looked down at her from Appa’s back. “Who are you again?”

“Sokka!” Suki admonished him. “It’s lovely to see you again, Sho-ren Mai,” she added. “I think Sokka meant to ask if Fire Lord Zuko could please help.” Her exasperated glare at Sokka made Zuko grin. 

As if she could feel his grin, Toph whispered, “Just like old times, huh, Sparky?” She playfully punched him on the arm, but Zuko only felt a glimmer of humor. His mood quickly soured as Mai walked into the house without another word. 

“You brought your gloomy girlfriend?” Sokka asked as he threw the pack to Zuko and slid from Appa’s back. 

“Gloomy fiancée,” Toph corrected. 

“You’re engaged? Congrats, Fire Lord Zuko.” Zuko’s heart leapt into his throat as Katara stepped around Appa’s tail. She had grown a little, and her hair was shorter, but when she smiled, he felt like only a day had passed since the end of the war. Only a day since she had told him she was in love with Aang. Only a day since he had watched her leave with Aang on Appa’s back. He had thought the scorch in his heart had healed, but he realized in an instant that the pain had only hidden itself, but never truly disappeared. 

“Katara,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again.”

She smiled, and Zuko noticed the slightest reddening of her cheeks. Or was that just his imagination?

“It’s so great to have the gang back together,” Aang said. “Five whole years, huh?”

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starving,” Sokka said. “How about we continue catching up over dinner?”

#  . . . . .

Katara poked at the stewed sea prunes with her chopsticks. The steam rose to her face, smelling like home, Gran-Gran, and her childhood. 

“So, what have the four of you been up to?” Toph asked. They all sat on the floor of a sitting room, preferring the comfort of pillows to the stuffiness of the table and chairs in the formal dining room. Mai sat close to Zuko, but Katara noted the stiffness in their spines, as though they were stone statues and not lovers catching up with old friends. 

“Traveling, repairing the world, accepting praise from adoring fans,” Sokka said casually as he slurped fireball chili soup. “Aang and Katara and Suki do most of the heavy lifting.”

“Sokka’s just been living the good life,” Suki teased. “The three of us have been drudging through helping people rebuild villages, start bending schools, and figure out the Fire Nation ex-pat situation.”

“The what?” Toph asked. Suki cleared her throat uncomfortably. Katara glanced at Aang and thought about the last time they had all been together in this house. Aang had only been a goofy, awkward fourteen-year-old, and now he was a handsome and charming nineteen-year-old with the confidence of a fully-realized Avatar and the broad shoulders of a man. He kept his head shaved in traditional monk style, but a hint of black hair darkened his chin and cheeks. She smiled when she looked at him, but she felt a tinge of sadness that dulled the edges of her happiness. 

“Certain groups of Fire Nation soldiers don’t seem to realize the war ended five years ago,” Aang said carefully, as though treading on a path of broken glass. “Particularly in small villages in the Earth Kingdom. They need… persuasion to convince them it’s no longer acceptable to extort villagers or threaten them with bending.”

“And that’s where Team Avatar comes in!” Sokka said, pounding his palm with a fist. “We’re really good at persuading.”

“I hope you’re not accusing the Fire Lord of anything,” Mai said stiffly. 

“Not that all firebenders are like that!” Aang said quickly. “In fact, most soldiers were happy to assimilate into their new communities. We’ve seen a ton of multi-nation towns where all types of people live together in harmony. We’ve even met multi-nation families. I know Zuko is busy keeping peace in the Fire Nation. He can’t be everywhere at once, and we’re happy to help.”

“What about you, Toph?” Katara cut in. Both Aang and Zuko looked relieved that she had changed the subject. “I heard you’re living in Ba Sing Se now.”

Toph shrugged and popped a bite of smoked sea slug into her mouth. “I spend a lot of time in Ba Sing Se, but I wouldn’t say I ‘live’ there. I come and go as I please. Mostly I’ve been teaching my style of earthbending and metalbending. It’s time for earthbenders to listen to the earth instead of their big muscles.”

“How about you, Fire Lord Zuko?” Suki asked. Katara didn’t miss the smirk of pride that Mai tried to hide. 

“It’s been tough, honestly,” Zuko admitted. His shoulders sank slightly, as though he was tired from carrying a heavy load. “I’ve been regaining the trust of my citizens, holding trials for those accused of war atrocities, and trying to repair relations between the Fire Nation and the other nations. The economy is struggling as well. So much of our industry was built upon the war. Factories aren’t churning out war machines anymore, so workers have been laid off. Men and women had dedicated their lives to the service, and now they’re returning home, looking for work that isn’t there.”

“The Fire Nation is still strong and proud though,” Mai interjected. “We are rebuilding, and soon we will return to our former glory.” Katara noticed that Zuko winced slightly at his fiancee’s words. 

“And you’re getting married!” Suki added with forced cheerfulness. 

Mai rested a hand on Zuko’s knee. “After the war, when I was freed from prison, Zuko and I made up. We plan to be married next spring.” Zuko looked up and smiled at Mai, and the love that passed between them looked genuine to Katara. A knot twisted in her stomach, but she pasted a smile on her face, like she had when she heard Toph call Mai Zuko’s gloomy fiancee. Zuko and Mai were happy. She and Aang were happy. The Universe had gotten what it had wanted. 

“Plus, our union will appease some of the nobles who worry about the traditions of the Fire Nation,” Mai added. “The Fire Lord should marry someone from a noble family. It’s only proper.” An awkward silence followed, until Aang yawned exaggeratedly. 

“It’s getting late,” Aang said as he used airbending to push himself off the ground. “I’ll probably head to bed soon. Katara?”

“Yeah, I’m tired too.” She took his hand and stood. “See you all tomorrow,” she said to the group. 

As she turned to follow Aang, Suki whispered, “Good luck!”

#  . . . . .

“Good luck?” Toph asked after Katara and Aang left the room. “What’s that about?”

Suki’s face turned bright red. “You heard that?”

Toph tapped her ear. “Blind, not deaf. What does Katara need luck for?” Zuko, despite himself, leaned forward slightly. 

Suki looked at Sokka, who shrugged like the secret was Suki’s to tell. She took a deep breath, and lowered her voice. “They’re trying to get pregnant. They’ve been trying, to be honest. For three years now. It’s pretty important that they have kids, you know? Since Aang’s the last airbender and all.”

Toph nodded, and Zuko tried to ignore the image of what Katara and Aang were probably doing right now. He stroked Mai’s hand where it rested on his knee. 

“It’s just not happening. They’ve been to every healer between here and the North Pole, but no one can figure out what’s wrong. The Order of the White Lotus is starting to get impatient.”

“The Order of the White Lotus? My uncle’s in that order,” Zuko said. 

Suki nodded. “Grand Lotus Iroh. We’ve met with him a few times as we’ve traveled. He was initially the most patient one, about the whole baby situation. But even he’s starting to get worried.”

Zuko wondered why his uncle had never mentioned this to him. He and Iroh visited each other at least twice a year, but in all this time, his uncle had never talked about seeing Avatar Aang or Katara at all. 

“Everyone’s freaking out for no reason, if you ask me,” Sokka said as he grabbed a piece of egg custard. “She’s only twenty-one. They have plenty of time for a big family.” Suki nodded, but Zuko thought she didn’t look convinced. 

“Well, I think that’s enough gossip for tonight,” Toph said as she stood. She turned to Zuko. “You cool if I take my old room, Sparky?”

#  . . . . .

Zuko unpacked his belongings and laid his tunics and trousers in one of the dresser drawers. 

“Can you believe that little earthbender took the Fire Lord’s suite?” Mai ranted as she brushed her hair in front of the vanity. “Regardless of where you slept during the war. The insolence!” They were in Zuko’s childhood bedroom, recently renovated to remove any hint of the past.

“It’s not a big deal,” Zuko said. “There are plenty of beds to go around.” 

Mai continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “They act like you’re not the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. It’s unbelievable. Of all the good things you’ve done for the world.”

“They’ve done just as much as me, Mai.” 

She turned to him, and he saw a mischievous glint in her eye that bordered on malicious. “Interesting that the Avatar can’t get the waterbender pregnant,” she said. “For an all-powerful bender, you’d think he’d be able to manage something so simple that even peasants do it.” The derogatory way she referred to the others grated on him, but he vividly remembered the days he had thought of them the same way. Before he had shared their campfire and their friendship. 

“Mai,” Zuko said. She shrugged one shoulder, as if she couldn’t be bothered to see how insulting her words were. Zuko shrugged out of his robes and pulled the covers back on the bed. Mai twisted to look at him. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. 

“Getting ready for bed?” He was confused why she had to ask. 

“You’re not sleeping here. What would people think?”

Zuko sighed. “There aren’t any servants to gossip. And we’re engaged, for spirits’ sake. Plus, Aang and Katara are in the same room, as well as Sokka and Suki.”

“Absolutely not,” Mai said. “Please, Zuko. We’re not some peasants who can throw propriety to the wind.”

“Fine.” Zuko stood and bowed formally to her. “Good night, Sho-ren Mai. Sleep pleasantly.” He slammed the door on his way out. As he walked down the hallway, his frustration caused the candles along the wall to burn brighter. He loved Mai, but she could be so consumed with what was proper. He wondered how she had ever brought herself to become a traitor to the crown when she betrayed Azula for him. 

Zuko stalked to the servants’ quarters. He found the old room where he had stayed five years ago. It had recently been cleaned, as though Ming had ordered it to be prepared for servants, despite knowing Zuko’s wishes. He remembered the last night he had spent in this room. For one night, Katara had been his. But that was in the past. She was with the Avatar. He loved Mai. He and Katara would always be friends. 

Shaking his head to clear the memories, he fell onto the bed and tried to sleep. 

#  . . . . .

“Maybe that was the one!” Aang whispered to Katara as they lay in bed, their chests panting from exertion. She squeezed his hand and smiled. Despite years without so much as a missed period, his infectious optimism kept her from losing hope. 

“Maybe!” she whispered back. She rolled over to rest her head against his bare shoulder, tracing the tattoo along his arm. 

“It’s nice to see Zuko and Toph again,” Aang said. “We should have done this sooner, but there hasn’t really been time for a vacation for any of us.” 

“Mm-hm.”

“And it’s really nice to be here without being worried someone will try to capture us. The last time we were here, we all had disguises, remember? I had to wear that stupid cap to hide my tattoos.”

“You hated that thing,” Katara said with a soft laugh. “I always thought it was kind of cute.”

“You remember what we did last time we were in this room?” Aang said wistfully. 

Katara racked her brains. The only memories of note from this room were about Zuko. And those memories were tinged with passion that she had tried to pack into the darkest boxes in the attic of her mind. Passion was for children, or people who didn’t have a greater responsibility to the world. Her destiny was to have children with Aang, not to reminisce about the fiery nights she had spent with Zuko. 

“Katara?” Aang asked. 

“Sorry,” she said. “I can’t remember. We were all pretty stressed back then, with the war.”

“Sure, no worries,” he said. She could hear the slight disappointment in his voice. “We kissed the last time we were here. Our third kiss. I was so nervous and excited to do it right. I’d had a crush on you for so long. You looked so pretty that night too.”

“Oh Aang.” Katara kissed his cheek and hugged him. “You’ve always been the sweetest. I love you.” His arms tightened around her, and she felt the safety born from years of familiarity. She sighed contentedly. 

“You’ve never regretted anything?” Aang asked suddenly. 

“What do you mean?”

Aang stroked her hair. “I know it’s not been easy for you. You left your home for me when you were only fourteen. And you’ve been at my side ever since.” He took a deep breath. “I just don’t want you to ever resent me for that.”

Katara sat up so she could look him in the eye. “Aang, I have no regrets. We’re meant to be together. My destiny has always been to be with you, whether I knew it or not. I wouldn’t have done anything differently.” She bent to kiss him and then laid back on his shoulder, ignoring a nagging feeling that tugged in her chest. 

* * *

AN: Welcome to Part 2! It’s going to be a slow burn, my friends. 


	9. Chapter 9

# Part 2: Chapter 9

"We saw the last embers of daylight die, 

And in the trembling blue-green of the sky 

A moon, worn as if it had been a shell 

Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell" 

_William Butler Yeats, excerpt from“Adam's Curse”_

* * *

When she heard Aang’s breathing slow down, Katara got out of the bed. Her naked body appeared to glow in the moonlight streaming through the window. Despite the renovations of the rest of the house, the Fire Lady’s suite appeared to be untouched. Katara walked to the open window and rested her elbows on the sill. She could hear the sounds of the waves crashing on the beach, and she felt a sudden desire to take a walk, despite the hour. She hadn’t been able to sleep much lately anyway. Quietly, she dug through her pack to find a dress, but when she couldn’t find anything suitable, she looked up and spotted the wardrobe. Would it still be there?

She tiptoed to the wardrobe and pulled open the door. Among the red clothes was a silk robe that smelled of flowers and vanilla. She pulled it on, remembering how she had worn it five years ago when she had stayed in this room under very different circumstances. She glanced at Aang, still fast asleep, before quietly leaving the room.

She followed the moonlight down the path to the west beach. It was still as overgrown as it had been years ago, but she enjoyed the feel of the seagrass under her feet as she walked. Starlight sparkled across the water, and Katara sat on the beach with her knees pulled to her chest. Her life felt like the waves, pulled by the moon’s invisible force. Only in her case, the moon was Aang’s destiny. Ever since she had discovered him in the iceberg seven years ago, her fate had been intertwined with his, but his had always taken priority over hers. And she was okay with that.

She stared over the waves, wondering how different her life would have been if someone else had found Aang in the iceberg. Would she have ever left the South Pole?

“Couldn’t sleep either?” someone asked from behind her.

Katara turned. “Toph! How’d you know I was down here?”

“I didn’t,” Toph said as she sat next to her. She picked up a broken shell and tossed it into the ocean. “Just didn’t want to be in that house anymore.”

“Why’s that?” Katara asked cautiously. She had never known Toph to be very forthcoming, but something seemed off about her.

“Too many memories. Everything’s different, you know?” Toph sat on the sand next to her.

“What do you mean?”

“We all used to be so close. After the war, we kind of drifted apart. Not you and Aang and Sokka and Suki, I guess. But me and Zuko, it’s like we’re trying to catch up on the past five years of being apart from you all. Well, maybe Zuko doesn’t feel that way.” Katara nodded silently before realizing Toph couldn’t see her, but Toph continued. “And honestly, it’s still weird for me to see you and Aang together. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” Toph said with a short laugh. “Especially since you and Zuko used to get it on.”

“Don’t remind me.” Katara dropped her chin onto her knees. “It’s so awkward to see him now.”

“Did Aang ever find out about all that?”

“I never told him. It was all in the past once we started dating. I assume Zuko didn’t tell him either. He better not hear it from you.”

Toph pretended to zip her lips, and Katara laughed softly. They both sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the waves and calls of nocturnal animals.

“Suki told us,” Toph said quietly.

“About what?” Katara asked, dreading the answer she knew was coming.

Toph dragged a finger through the sand at her feet. “About trying for a baby and all that. I’m sorry. I hope it works out for you guys.”

“Did…” Katara gulped down her concern. “Did Zuko hear that too?” Toph nodded, and Katara sighed. “It doesn’t matter who knows. The whole world will figure it out eventually. But it all sucks. Every single month, Aang gets so hopeful, until I have to tell him the monthly blood came. After this trip, we’re supposed to meet with the Order of the White Lotus in Omashu to discuss our options.”

“Why are those oldies getting involved in your love life?” Toph asked brusquely. “It’s not like it’s any of their business.”

“They think it is, since Aang’s the last airbender.”

“I’ve haven’t been to Omashu since I lived with my parents,” Toph said, abruptly changing the subject. “Is it still nice?”

“Yeah, it is. You’d really like it. Bumi stepped down as king after the war, and they’re working on developing a democratic system of government. Actually,” Katara said as she turned to Toph, “you should come with us. You said you missed the old days, right? You should come travel with us for a bit!”

“Really?”

“Of course. We’d all love getting to spend more time with you.”

Toph’s face relaxed into a content grin. “I’ve always wanted to be a fifth wheel,” she joked.

Katara laughed. “Sokka and Suki don’t display so much public affection anymore. I guess dating for six years does that to you. Aang and me, well… we keep it lowkey.” Katara didn’t want to mention how it didn’t matter how low-key they were. The entire world knew the Avatar had taken a water tribe lover, despite many young women’s attempts to seduce him in the cities and villages they traveled to.

“About that… any plans to get married?” Toph asked.

“Suki and Sokka think they will in the next year or so.” Katara took a deep breath. “Aang and I haven’t really talked about it.”

“Why not?” Toph pushed.

“Prying, much?” Katara teased, hoping humor masked her anxiety.

Toph shrugged. “Hey, I haven’t seen you in four years. I’m just trying to get caught up, okay?” Katara looked at Toph critically. Had it actually been four years? Toph had grown taller than Katara in the time apart, a fact that grated on Katara’s nerves. She still wore greens and yellows, but the clothing clung to her curves more than they had when she had only been fourteen. She wasn’t a child anymore, and Katara knew she needed to start treating her like a woman. 

“Aang’s people didn’t get married, so I don’t think he thinks about it much.” Katara lay back on the sand and looked at the stars.

“And you?”

“Can I be honest?” Katara asked as she rolled onto her side facing Toph. She propped her head on her hand.

Toph laughed and said, “Did you forget I can tell when people are lying?”

“I just mean, can I tell you the whole truth instead of part of it? Will you keep this to yourself?”

“Sure. I kept your secret about you and Zuko, didn’t I?” Toph stared out at the sea, but she picked lint and dirt from between her toes. The familiar quirk reminded Katara of the countless days she had spent with Toph before the end of the war.

“I guess I just don’t see the need to get married. What would a ceremony tell us that we don’t already know? We love each other, regardless of whether or not we’ve gone through some traditional pomp and circumstance.”

“I thought you said the whole truth,” Toph said quietly.

“That is the whole truth,” Katara snapped. She could feel herself getting defensive, putting up walls to protect herself, even though she didn’t know what the threat was.

“Fine. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Toph blew her hair out of her eyes. “I just know your heart doesn’t beat faster when you see Aang. Not like Suki’s does when she looks at your brother. Even now, after six years, I know exactly when she’s looking at him. You’ve never been that way with Aang. But you have with Zuko.”

Katara stared at her. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t possibly imply that I ever loved Zuko more than I love Aang.”

Toph shrugged. “There are a lot of different kinds of love. I’m not saying you don’t love Aang. It just seems like you aren’t in love with him.”

“I’m trying to have his baby,” Katara replied sharply. “Why would I do that if I’m not in love with him?”

Toph turned to face her. Her cloudy gray eyes stared past Katara, unseeing. “I can’t answer that for you, Katara,” she said quietly.

. . . . .

Later, when Katara said good night to Toph, she headed back up the path to the summer house. Exhaustion had finally caught up with her, and all she wanted was to fall back into the silk sheets of the Fire Lady suite. The Universe had other plans, as she heard the laughter and playful screams of children. Curious about who was on a beach in the middle of the night, Katara turned to the path that led to the south beach.

By the shore, a few children played in the sand, lit by the nearly-full moon. Katara watched as they splashed each other and dove under the water only to pop up somewhere else. Unlike the west beach, protected by a reef that calmed the water, waves crashed on the south beach, rhythmically echoing the children’s play. The children looked young, between the ages of seven and ten, but a tall, wiry girl on the cusp of adolescence played in the waves with the others. Katara counted four children in all. She watched the oldest girl splash and dive in the water with her companions, and smiled, thinking about how they had probably snuck out of their beds to play without their parents’ knowledge. It was something she and Sokka would have done at the South Pole when they were younger. Before her mother had died.

Katara pulled the silk robe tighter around herself and yawned, aching for the warm place beside Aang in bed. Crickets chirped in the bushes near her bare feet, but as she turned to walk back to the house, she heard a scream.

Whipping around, Katara stared at the beach. One. Two. Three. She could only see three kids. Without a thought, she sprinted down the path to the beach. In an instant, she was in the water. A child screamed again, far out over the waves.

“My little brother!” The tall girl Katara had noticed had gone pale in the moonlight. “He’s too far out!” Katara cursed under her breath. The riptide.

Zuko had told them about the riptide years ago, when they had first come to Ember Island, but none of them had thought much about it. She and Aang were master waterbenders, Toph never swam anyway, and Sokka and Suki, having grown up by water, instinctively knew to swim perpendicular to a rip tide if they were caught in it. These Fire Nation children hadn’t been so lucky.

As the drowning child screamed again, Katara bended a sheet of ice over the waves, and began sprinting toward him. Only a moment later, she realized she had underestimated the waves as they broke across her ice and smashed her path. Thinking fast, she bended a column of water around her body, lifting her above the waves. The ocean was black with roiling white stripes in the moonlight, and Katara desperately looked around for the boy. When she couldn’t see him, she bended the column away, took a deep breath, and dove into the water.

The ocean was pitch black, the moonlight barely piercing the water. Katara swam desperately through the water, her teeth clenched. It would be impossible. She’d never find him this way. With her fear and anger fueling her, she sank to the bottom of the water, until she felt her feet connect with the silt and seaweed. Taking only a second to compose herself, she swept her arms away from her center as quickly as she could through the water.

The water parted. Two towering walls formed, but in the center was a circle of wet sand. In the middle, a little boy lay on his back. Katara held the pose, afraid if she dropped her arms, the water would consume them both.

“He’s here!” she yelled. Behind her, the adolescent girl swam until she reached the circle beneath the parted waves. The girl ran to her brother and put her ear to his chest.

“Help me!” she screamed. “I don’t think he’s breathing!”

Katara’s arms began to shake under the strain of holding the waves back, and she felt her concentration slipping. Taking one centering breath, she bended the water walls into ice, as thick as she could manage, to hold back the crashing waves. As soon as she felt certain they would hold for at least a few seconds, she sprinted to the children. Placing one hand on the boy’s chest, Katara bended the water out of his lungs. Immediately, he began coughing, and his eyes opened.

“We’ve got to go, now! Can you carry him?” Katara asked the girl. The child nodded, her eyes huge with fear. Katara stood, and the girl pulled her brother to his feet, draping his arm across her shoulder. Katara looked at the ice walls around them and wondered how the spirits they would get back to shore. At that moment, the sand under their feet rumbled, and Katara looked up, expecting the water to come crashing down on them. Instead, the sand hardened together, and began to move. The sand platform began to rise, and once they were nearly eye-level with the top of the frozen walls, Katara bended a protective bubble of water around them. Sand began to fall away under her feet, and Katara hoped whatever earthbender was doing this, whether Aang or Toph or a stranger, would be able to keep their focus long enough to get them over the ice wall.

As they crested the wall, Katara bended an ice platform, and jumped onto it. She turned back and stretched out her arms.

“Here, pass him to me!” she instructed the girl. Once the boy was in Katara’s arms, the girl jumped to the ice platform, sending it rocking. Praying it would hold, Katara bended the water around the platform away, shooting them forward to the beach, remembering how the waterbenders in the swamp used to bend the water around their canoes. Mercifully, the makeshift ice boat held, and they reached the beach. A small crowd had grown, and a woman rushed forward to grab the boy as he collapsed from exhaustion. The girl moved to join them, but Katara grabbed her arm.

“What’s your name?” she asked, bending to look the girl in the eyes.

“Hai Rong,” the girl said quietly.

“Hai Rong. You made a huge mistake tonight. Can you tell me what it was?”

“Going to the beach without my parents,” she said. Her chin dropped to her chest in shame. Katara placed a hand under her chin and gently raised it.

“No. Well, yes and no. You’re the oldest here, right?” When the girl nodded, Katara continued. “As the oldest and the strongest, it’s your job to watch out for your friends and siblings who are younger than you. It’s your job to keep everyone safe. A riptide can pull someone out to sea in an instant. Or someone could swim out too far on their own. There’s a million things that could go wrong. But that’s your responsibility. You have a duty to others, whether you want it or not. Do you understand?”

Hai Rong nodded slowly, but her shoulders slumped. Katara knew the feeling, so she squeezed her shoulders and stood. “Duty. Remember that, Hai Rong.”


	10. Chapter 10

# Part 2: Chapter 10

This chapter is dedicated to everyone who left me an encouraging comment last week. Thank you! You give me the motivation to keep going!

“This is the solstice,

the still point

of the sun, its cusp

and midnight,

the year's threshold

and unlocking,

where the past

lets go of and

becomes the future;

the place of caught

breath…”

_Margaret Atwood, "Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965 - 1995"_

* * *

When Zuko woke, the sun was streaming through the wooden blinds. He rubbed his eyes and felt a splitting headache. Sleeping on an old, thin mattress was not as easy as it had been when he was a fugitive. He stood, stretched, and pulled on casual clothes before leaving his room. 

The others were already in the kitchen, drinking tea, telling jokes, and chatting while Suki stirred a pot on the stove. Mai was nowhere to be seen. 

“Fire Lord Zuko! Looks like someone slept in!” Sokka said when Zuko walked in. 

“I haven’t gotten to sleep in since before the end of the war,” Zuko replied as he slid into an empty seat at the table. 

“Sokka, be nice!” Suki said. She handed Zuko a cup of tea. “Here. It’s probably not nearly as good as your uncle’s, but I hope it still helps you wake up. Did you sleep through the adventure last night?”

“What adventure?” he asked as he took a sip from the steaming cup. It was more bitter than Uncle’s tea, but he appreciated the gesture. While he looked around, he noticed Katara avoided his eyes. She looked beautiful in a light gray wrap dress in classic water tribe style. 

“I definitely wouldn’t call it an adventure—” she started to say. 

“Sugar queen and I saved someone from drowning last night,” Toph interrupted. Her dirty feet were propped on the table. “Apparently the local kids aren’t aware of the riptide off the south beach.”

“Probably the royal staff’s children. Some of them brought their… offspring when I told them they could have the week as a holiday while we’re here. Local children know better,” Zuko said. 

“I still don’t understand what you guys were doing outside in the middle of the night,” Aang said. “I didn’t even hear you get up, Katara.”

Zuko’s stomach twisted at the reminder that Katara slept in the same bed as Aang. _Stop being so stupid, you idiot,_ ” he thought. He took another sip of Suki’s bitter tea to hide his discomfort. 

“We were sparring,” Toph said. “Water versus rock, like the good old days. Spoiler alert: rock always wins.” Katara reached over and pulled Toph’s hair. “Hey!”

Zuko felt a familiar uncomfortable feeling tug inside him. He was always going to be the outsider in their little group, always the one looking in. Sure, they would include him in their reunions, but just like when he abandoned the throne five years ago to teach Aang firebending, he would never truly fit in. He stood. 

“I should probably go find Mai, see if she wants to join us.”

“Breakfast will be ready in just a few minutes!” Suki said. As Zuko turned, he caught Katara watching him go. 

# . . . . .

Zuko knocked on the heavy wood door of his old bedroom. “Mai? Breakfast is almost ready.” The door swung open, and Zuko stepped back in surprise. His fiancée was dressed in a maroon robe made of a heavy fabric that looked too hot for the tropical island. She also wore a scowl that could crack the wall around Ba Sing Se. 

“Took you long enough.” She swept past him into the hallway. Zuko followed quickly. 

“You were waiting for me? You could have just come out. Everyone’s in the kitchen.” She stopped and glared at him. “What?” he asked. 

She crossed her arms. “Zuko, look. They’re your friends. Not mine. What am I supposed to talk to them about? While they’re off reminiscing about saving the world, I have to sit there, knowing I actively tried to stop them.” Her voice had lowered, but each word was as sharp and precise as a throwing knife. “I should be a war criminal, and the only reason I’m not is because of you and my connections in the Fire Nation court. They know that. I know that. And they think I’m a whore who’s sleeping with you to avoid rotting in prison.”

“Mai, no one is thinking—” Zuko said. She held up a hand to stop him. 

“We’re only here for a few days. I can tolerate it. I just need you to know that I’m not welcome here. And I never will be. I was on the wrong side of history, Zuko. If Ozai had defeated the Avatar, I would have stayed in the Boiling Rock for betraying Azula. She may even have had me executed for treason. But now, everyone knows how I helped her stage a coup d'état against the Earth King and try to kill the Avatar and his watertribe girlfriend. They’re all heroes,” she said, pointing in the direction of the kitchen. “You won’t find a man, woman, or child who doesn’t know their names. But me? Just some treacherous noblewoman who was loyal to Azula.”

Zuko stared at Mai. How long had she been carrying this feeling? He realized in an instant what a fool he was. With Azula in prison in the Northern Water Tribe and Ty Lee living with the Kyoshi warriors, Mai had no friends to confide in. Her parents and brother, like many of the royal families who had benefited from the war and the old regime, had sworn an oath of loyalty to the new world peace, before being shipped off to the Earth Kingdom to assimilate. 

Zuko swallowed. “Is that why you’re marrying me? Because you feel like you don’t have another option?” 

For the first time since they’d arrived at Ember Island, Zuko saw Mai smile. “No, of course not. I’m marrying you because I love you. I’ve always loved you.” 

He smiled and took her hand. “I love you too. And I get it. Being an outsider and all that. More than you’d think I would. But we’re in this together. You and me against the world, right?”

Mai sighed, but she smiled again briefly before kissing his cheek, and they joined the others in the kitchen. 

# . . . . .

“Huh. I never knew Pai Sho could be so interesting,” Toph said as she rested a hand on the board. Zuko picked up one of the pieces to look at it more closely. After a long day of swimming and exploring the island, Sokka had presented Toph with a hand-carved stone set and offered to teach her how to play. Instead of flat tiles like traditional sets, he had carved each tile as a miniature shape so Toph could feel them more easily. They all sat on pillows in the middle of a room in the summer house. A pot of tea rested on a low table, and a soft rain began to fall outside the window. 

“Sokka, you did a really great job on this,” Katara said. To the group, she said, “He’s been working on this for months, but he would never show us what it was.” 

“I actually snuck a look in his bag once, but I couldn’t figure out what they were for,” Aang said as he moved a carved chrysanthemum to the center of the board. “Who knew that someone who’s blind can play pai sho with the right board!” 

“And kick your butt, too,” Toph said as she placed a white dragon piece. “Smart to carve them out of stone so I can see better.”

“Well, you know,” Sokka said, shrugging under the praise. “We had a lot of time since we can’t travel on Appa.”

“You can’t?” Zuko asked. He set the piece back down. Beside him, Mai stared closely at the board. 

“We’ve got a whole entourage now,” Aang said. His mouth curled down in a scowl. “Members of the White Lotus, representatives from each of the three nations, their servants and families. The whole works.” 

“I miss the days we could fly hundreds of miles on Appa,” Sokka complained. “But I guess it makes sense. Reestablishing world peace after a hundred years isn’t a four person job.”

“Is Shan Lin still the Fire Nation representative?” Mai asked. 

“Yes, you know him?” Katara said. 

“His daughter went to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls. A few years older than me, but I knew of her.” Mai lifted her hand and studied her long, tapered fingernails. Zuko’s jaw clenched. After knowing Mai for almost his whole life, he knew her tells. 

“A-ha!” Toph screeched as she placed a flower piece. “I win! Melon Lord can never be defeated!”

Zuko looked at the board. Toph’s pieces had successfully surrounded Aang’s, making her the winner. Aang slapped his arrow with his palm and laughed. 

“Monk Gyatso would laugh if he saw how I fell for your gambit.” He bowed respectfully to Toph over the board. “Good game, Melon Lord.”

“Who’s next? Zuko?” Toph asked. 

“Oh, I haven’t played pai sho in years,” Zuko said as he rubbed the back of his neck. 

Sokka slapped him on the back. “Come on, Fire Lord! I bet you played all the time with your uncle. Avenge Aang and restore his honor!” The group laughed, but Zuko noticed Mai didn’t crack a smile. 

“Okay.” Zuko switched seats with Aang, and Mai helped reset the board. Katara rubbed Aang’s back as he sat beside her. 

“Anyone want more tea?” Suki asked as she picked up the empty pot. 

“Here, Suki. You don’t have to go through all that trouble.” Katara bended water out of a pitcher and refilled the pot. 

“No offense, Katara, but you’re not very good at using bending to boil water,” Sokka said. “You only ever get it lukewarm or turn it all into steam.” 

“I know, but Zuko can boil it.” Katara took the pot from Suki and handed it to Zuko. He accepted it with both hands. For the briefest second, their hands brushed, and a spark of electricity made the hairs on his arms stand up. He looked at the pot so he wouldn’t have to meet her eyes. Had she felt it too?

Concentrating, Zuko heated the pot and the water inside, directing his firebending through his palms. He noticed Katara sit and push her hair back from her face. As she bent forward, her gray wrap dress fell open, revealing a glimpse of dark cleavage. Startled, Zuko placed the teapot back on the low table and turned toward the pai sho board. 

Suki picked up the teapot and immediately dropped it back to the table. “Ow! Spirits!”

“You okay?” Aang asked. 

Suki stuck the tips of her fingers into her mouth. “Yeah, I just burnt myself. You didn’t have to make it so hot, Zuko.” 

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. He looked up to see Katara watching him. She had already readjusted her dress to cover herself. 

Across the table, Toph cracked her knuckles. “Sounds like I have to beat you extra badly now.” She placed a flower piece near the edge of the board. Zuko turned toward the game, grateful for a distraction. 

“I could have done it, you know,” Aang told Katara. 

“Oh, you’re right. It’s funny, I just never think of you as a firebender,” Katara said. Zuko placed a piece on the board, but listened closely. 

“Master of all four elements, remember?” Aang said. Even without looking, Zuko could hear the annoyance in Aang’s voice.

“Like any of us could forget,” Sokka said with a laugh. Suki joined in awkwardly. The room suddenly felt tense, and Zuko couldn’t figure out what had changed. 

Katara placed a hand on Aang’s arm, but he shrugged it off. Zuko picked up another piece, but before he could place it, he heard a loud knock at the front door. Aang propelled himself off the floor with airbending, and spun an airball to ride to the door. 

They all listened to the sound of the door opening. “Good evening, Avatar Aang. Sorry to disturb you. I have a message for Fire Lord Zuko.” A moment later, Aang walked back into the room, leading a Fire Nation guard. “Sire.” The guard bowed to Zuko. “We received a hawk with a message from the capital.”

Zuko stood. “What does it say?” 

The guard glanced around the room. “Shall we, uh, speak privately?” 

“The Avatar and our friends can hear this too,” Zuko said. 

The guard nodded and cleared his throat. “We received word of a plot by former royals to infiltrate the court. Your advisors wrote to request you return to the capital immediately to deal with the threat.”

# . . . . .

Less than three hours later, Zuko stood at the bow of the Fire Nation Royal Yacht. The salty breeze blew through his hair as the captain shouted orders to the crew to chart a course to the capital. He knew Ember Island was slowly disappearing behind them, but he faced forward. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned. 

“You okay?” Mai asked. 

“Yes,” he replied before turning back to watch the horizon. 

“You’re doing the right thing, you know. Threats don’t just disappear because you decide to take a vacation.”

“I know.”

Mai sighed. “It’s getting cold.” She pointed at one of the crew members. “You! Bring the Fire Lord his robe.” 

“Yes, m’lady,” the man said before hurrying off. 

Mai rubbed his back in small, slow circles. “Something’s on your mind.”

Zuko thought about how the brief goodbye hug he had accepted from Katara, how at that simple touch, he realized that five years had not quelled the attraction he felt for her. But it wasn’t fair to Mai to dwell on those thoughts. 

“I’m just worried about the plot.” 

Mai nodded and said, “We’ll figure it out. The throne is yours by right, now that your father… passed away.” Zuko bent and kissed her. Surprised, Mai took a reflexive step back. “What was that for?” she asked. “This ship is full of servants and sailors. People are probably watching us.”

“We’re engaged, Mai. And I appreciate you. I don’t know how I’d have survived the past five years without you.” 

Mai smiled and tucked her arm through his. “Us against the world, right, Zuko?”

* * *

AN: I was initially intending the vacation to be longer, but I’m too excited to start writing the next parts! Finally we’ll start getting into the part of the plot that made me start writing this story in the first place. Please leave a review if you loved or hated this chapter— I want to hear your thoughts! 


	11. Chapter 11

#  Part 2: Chapter 11

AN: Apologies to everyone on FanFic and AO3 who want to know when Zuko and Katara will get together. When I say slow burn, I mean slooooooooow. (But that means I’m committed to making this a great story!) This chapter is going to be pretty intense emotionally. And the next chapter. And probably the one after that. 

“Love me because I am lost;

Love me that I am undone.

That is brave,—no man has wished it,

Not one.

Be strong, to look on my heart

As others look on my face.

Love me,—I tell you that it is a ravaged

Terrible place.”

_ Louise Bogan, “Song” _

* * *

“You want us to come with you? Could be a good mission for the Gaang,” Sokka said to Zuko after the guard had bowed and left. 

“No. I need to sort this out myself.” Zuko helped Mai up, and they had quickly said their goodbyes before leaving. 

The memory replayed over and over in Katara’s mind, even as she tried to push it away. Zuko was right. He shouldn’t need to rely on them to help run his nation. After Zuko and Mai had left, the rest of the group, still sitting on pillows in one of the summer house rooms, debated what to do. 

“We could stay for the rest of the week, like we originally planned,” Sokka said. “It’s still a vacation, even if Zuko had to ditch us.”

“Or we could also go to Omashu early,” Suki said. “Aang still has to meet with the Order of the White Lotus.” 

“That’s my vote,” Toph chimed in. “It’ll be no fun to stay here without Sparky anyway.”

“You decided to come with us?” Katara asked. Despite Zuko’s abrupt departure, she felt herself smile at the thought of traveling with Toph again. 

“Sure. It’s been ages since I’ve seen Omashu. And Iroh will be there too, right?”

Aang sighed. “He’s the Grand Lotus, so probably.” He picked up two of the pai sho pieces and idly spun them in the air with his bending. 

“You’re really not looking forward to this meeting, huh?” Toph asked. Katara ground her teeth, wishing Toph would drop it. Couldn’t she tell it was a sensitive topic?

Aang dropped the pai sho pieces. “Why would I? They’re just going to tell me what I already know.” He waved his hands in the air like a teacher lecturing his pupils. “Besides being the Avatar, I have a duty to the world to repopulate the airbenders. You’d think after ending the Hundred Year War, I’d get a break.” His chin sank onto his knee, and Katara was reminded of the twelve-year-old boy she had rescued from the iceberg seven years ago.

“Hey, maybe they have a solution. Some new tea or something, and soon you guys will be popping out a baby airbender every year.” Sokka reached for a bowl of grapes next to the pai sho board. 

“Maybe,” Katara said, forcing a smile at Aang. 

“You’ve talked to Roku about this, right?” Toph asked. 

“I’ve talked to Roku and a million other reincarnations of myself. I’ve meditated and gotten acupuncture and even been “healed” in case something got broken!” he said, waving a palm over his pants. “And that’s not even mentioning what Katara’s gone through.”

Katara shut her eyes and drank her tea. She didn’t want to think about the healers and midwives across every nation who had examined her from top to bottom, inside and out. 

“Sometimes this sort of thing just happens,” Suki said. “It’s no one’s fault.”

“Maybe not for most people, but you can’t make any mistakes as the Avatar!” Aang said, his voicing getting louder. “None of you understand the pressure I’m under. I have to be perfect, all the time, or I’m letting down everyone. And every day I’m not bringing more airbenders into the world is a day that I’m failing.”

Katara stood, placing her tea on the table. Without a word, she walked from the room, hearing Sokka whisper, “Well, now you’ve done it, Arrowhead.”

#  . . . . .

When Zuko strode into the throne room, he saw Mai was already seated at the seat to the throne’s right. When his council of advisors saw him enter, they all stood and bowed. As he sat, he waved his hand. 

“Be seated,” he announced. Once the men and women resumed their seats on red pillows around a table, Zuko placed his hands on his crossed knees. “Since I’ve been away, I’ve been made aware of threats to the throne. Who has information on this? Is this Azula’s doing?”

An older woman, her white hair wrapped in a bun on top of her head, spoke. “Sire, as you know, Princess Azula is still being held as a prisoner with our allies in the Northern Water Tribe.”

“I remember, Advisor Liu. But how do you know she hasn’t escaped? As I recall, she made a decent attempt when she was being held at the Boiling Rock two or three years ago. She managed to convince the very men and women meant to keep her there that helping her was their only choice.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” a man said. Zuko vaguely remembered his name was Zhang. “Princess Azula is known for being… cunning. But the Northern Water Tribe has devised a system to prevent her guards from falling to her guiles the way the guards at the Boiling Rock did.” 

“And what’s that?” Zuko asked, leaning forward. Advisor Zhang cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Well?” Zuko prompted.

“Her water tribe guards, uh, stuff their ears with wax,” Zhang said. 

“They what?”

“When they deliver her meals, or clean her cell, they put wax in their ears to prevent communication with the princess.”

Zuko groaned. “These imbeciles are stuffing their ears because they’re afraid she’ll trick them?”

“Actually, Sire, it’s quite the clever response,” a young advisor added. Zuko could not have recalled his name if a blade had been held to his throat. “A simple, inexpensive way to prevent Princess Azula from tempting anyone with the promise of power or wealth in exchange for help.”

Zuko slapped a palm against his forehead, and beside him, Mai laughed softly. “They’ve got a point, Zuko,” she whispered to him. 

“Okay. Great. So we can reasonably rule out Azula. What about the previous royals? The ones who were shipped to the Earth Kingdom after the end of the war?”

“We have not heard any whispers from our contacts with the ex-patriots,” Advisor Liu said. “I believe we can reasonably rule out the royals loyal to your father.”

Zuko sighed. “Fine. So who else would benefit from removing me from the throne?”

#  . . . . .

Katara tried to catch her breath outside the old throne room of Omashu. The last time she and Aang had been there, King Bumi had subjected Aang to three tests, each increasing in danger. She wondered what lay behind the doors now. 

“We’re in this together, okay?” Aang whispered as he squeezed her hand. The past few days had been a blur of traveling and preparing for the meeting with the Order of the White Lotus. Toph had, of course, gotten sick on Appa’s back during the first day of flying, but caring for a queasy passenger had actually taken Katara’s mind off the upcoming meeting. Until now. 

Katara looked up at Aang and smiled through her unease. When she nodded, Aang pushed open the large door and led them into the giant chamber. 

Inside, members of the White Lotus sat on a raised dais, their chairs forming a semi-circle around a table. As she and Aang walked to the center of the room, Katara felt like they were on trial. 

“Master Katara. Avatar Aang. It is so good to see you.” Iroh stood from his chair. “Welcome to Omashu.”

Katara and Aang bowed. “Thank you, Grand Lotus Iroh. It is an honor to meet with the Order,” Aang said. Katara glanced around surreptitiously. Twelve people sat on the curved dais. Most were men, but Katara noticed a few women as well. Each wore the traditional navy robes and white, pleated collar of the Order, and all were well past middle age. Bumi was the oldest, at one hundred and nineteen, but he wore the cockeyed grin of a young boy. 

“Well, Aang, we all know why we’re here,” Bumi said with a wink. “Let’s not beat around the cabbage bush. You’re the last airbender. And despite trying for three years, you and your lovely wife have not conceived.”

Katara cringed at the word wife. Iroh’s sharp eyes must have noticed, because he said, “Something wrong, Master Katara?”

“It’s just, ah… we’re not married,” she said. Aang’s hand tightened around hers in support. 

“Really? I just assumed. Well, that makes what we have to say easier,” Bumi replied. 

“What?” Aang asked. His shoulders straightened, and he stood slightly taller. He looked around at each of the members, as if challenging them to speak. “Go on, what is it that you want to say?” 

“Katara, Aang, we know this has been a very difficult time for you,” Iroh said gently. “But beautiful flowers can grow in the most adverse of situations.” 

“And what beautiful flower is that?” Aang asked. From the corner of her eye, Katara could see Aang’s jaw clench as he spoke. 

“The rebirth of the airbenders,” said an older woman, seated next to Bumi. Her short, white hair reminded Katara of classic Earth Kingdom style. “Avatar Aang, you are in a unique position to help the memory of your people. It is fortunate, in a way, that you were born a man.”

“What?” Katara asked, feeling like she had been slighted. 

“What we’re suggesting is not going to be easy to hear,” Iroh said. “We’ll understand if you need time to think about this before you make any sort of decision.” 

“Would you all just spit it out?” Aang demanded. 

Bumi spread his hands wide. “We want you to have a harem!”

#  . . . . .

“Well? Who else would benefit from overthrowing me?” Zuko asked his advisors again. “This plot obviously has to be from someone or some group that would get something from getting rid of me. If it’s not Azula, or previous royals who have assimilated into the Earth Kingdom, then who?”

“Sire, we’ve heard reports that… those loyal to the Avatar could be behind this,” Advisor Zhang said. His brows knit and he steepled his fingers as he watched Zuko’s reaction. 

Zuko tried to remain calm, despite the ridiculous claim. “The Avatar? That’s ridiculous. Aang and I have a close friendship.”

Beside him, Mai coughly softly. To anyone else, it may have seemed an innocent noise, but Zuko could hear her skepticism. As if she was whispering in his ear, he heard her voice in his head saying, “Really, Zuko? Until three days ago, you hadn’t seen him in five years.”

Zuko rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “I don’t understand what the Avatar would gain from staging a coup against me.”

“Not the Avatar himself, Sire,” another advisor said. “His supporters from the water tribes and the Earth Kingdom. They see it as an eye for an eye. A hundred years ago, the Fire Nation decimated the Air Nomads. Now, they see the Avatar ascending the Fire Nation throne as divine retribution for the sins of your forefather. The supporters call themselves the Glass Triangle.”

#  . . . . .

“Absolutely not,” Aang said. “A harem? Seriously?”

“Now Aang, hear us out,” Bumi said, raising a hand. “This is not so far from Air Nomad tradition. The monks never married, correct?”

Aang nodded, but Katara saw the skepticism on his face. She felt as if she was watching the moment unfold from a distance, as if she was simply a bird that had landed on the windowsill. Unattached. Unbothered. Unaffected. 

“We’re proposing something similar,” Bumi continued. “Even if the spirits blessed Katara with pregnancy now, she is only human. We’re talking one baby a year. And Master Katara is more than simply an airbender factory.”

“Avatar Aang, if you took many lovers, within a generation, the world could start recovering the airbender population,” a different member of the Order said. “And Master Katara would no longer solely bear the burden of birthing an entire nation.”

“What we’re picturing is not a harem, exactly.” The woman with short, white hair shot Bumi a dark look as she folded her hands on top of the table and turned to Katara. “Avatar Aang would continue to travel as he has done since the end of the war. The only difference being that each town or village would present the Avatar with two to three young ladies. Avatar Aang would then spend a night or two with each young lady before traveling to another town. These young ladies would stay in their towns and villages while growing the next generation of airbenders. When the children are born, they will be brought up in airbender academies, as similar to the Air Nomad way of life as possible. We understand that traditionally, airbending children did not grow up with a nuclear family, and we plan to respect this custom.”

“Take some time,” Iroh said. “Both of you. Think about what we said. Talk together. Meditate on it. We don’t expect an answer now.” 

Aang bowed and gripped Katara’s hand tightly before turning and pulling her toward the doors.

#  . . . . .

“I wonder how long they’ve had this all planned out,” Aang ranted as he paced the bedroom he and Katara were sharing in the Omashu palace. “Seriously. Did you hear that one lady? They want me to sleep with three women in each village. And then just move on and do it all over again.”

“I heard, Aang,” Katara said quietly. She sat on the foot of the bed, twisting a corner of the blanket around her fingers. She could no longer imagine herself as separate, apart from the situation. She knew now why the Order had asked to speak to them both. She was the linchpin of this plan. 

“I can’t believe they expect us to just go along with this! If I had any hair, I’d be pulling it out of my head right now.” He stopped pacing and looked at Katara. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been talking about myself and my own feelings. How are you holding up?”

Katara met his eyes before taking a deep breath. “I think you should do it.”

“What! Katara, how could you say that?”

Katara stood and walked to the window. Outside, though it was growing dark, stone carts raced up and down the chutes. “It’s like you said on Ember Island. It’s kind of your duty to have as many airbending children as possible, and that’s true even if you weren’t the Avatar. You’re the last airbender, Aang. You need to have lots of kids. And clearly, that’s not working with me.”

Aang huffed in exasperation. “But you’re my partner. I can’t go around and cheat on you every night with a different lady.”

Katara turned to Aang. “It’s not cheating if I think you should do it. Look, Aang. I get that you don’t want to do it. It’s obviously not my first choice either. But we can’t let our feelings get in the way of the greater good. Sometimes what we want doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things.”

“I can’t believe you bought into their nonsense. It’s not right, and I won’t do it.”

Katara sighed, realizing she’d have to try a different tactic. “Aang, what if I can’t have children? What if that’s just not my destiny? I love you, and I’ll always love you, but sometimes love doesn’t solve every problem. I don’t want to be the reason you’re the last airbender ever.”

“It’s not your fault,” Aang said. 

Katara stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “But if I can’t convince you, it will be my fault.” She pulled back to look him in the eye and stroked his cheek with one finger. “Please, Aang. Do this for me.”

* * *

AN: Whoo boy, that was fun to write. I wrote this entire chapter in less than 24 hours. What did you think? Was this the direction you thought the story was taking? Let me know in a review or PM!


	12. Chapter 12

#  Part 2: Chapter 12

AN: I know a lot of us escape into reading/gaming/television to avoid pain in the world, and that’s a good and necessary thing for your mental health. But when you have the mental bandwidth, please examine your life to see how you benefit from systemic racism, and research how you can do your part to work against racism and racist systems. If you are a citizen over 18 in the US, please register to vote! Even if you don’t live in a swing state! 

“And her voice is a string of coloured beads,

Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,

And her ways to my ways resign;

But she was not made for any man,

And she never will be all mine.” 

_ -Edna St. Vincent Millay, excerpt from “Witch Wife” _

* * *

Zuko took off his robe and tossed it on his bed before removing his royal headpiece and placing it in a velvet-lined box on a mantle by his bed. He stretched and rubbed his neck as he collapsed on his back next to his robe. Before he could roll under the covers and submit to sleep, someone rapped lightly on his door. 

“Go away, I’m sleeping!” Zuko called. The door slid open, and Mai stepped inside. 

“Mai!” Zuko quickly sat up. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you worried what people will think?” he asked sardonically. 

Mai laughed quietly. “I snagged you a hot towel from the bathhouse. Figured you might have a headache after everything that happened today.” She pulled the steaming towel from behind her back and handed it to him. He unfolded it and buried his face in it. 

“You have no idea,” he said with a groan. 

Mai sat on the bed next to him and rested a hand on his knee. “I’m sorry about your friends,” she said. 

“What do you mean?”

“I just think it must be hard to have heard from your advisors that your supposed friends are secretly plotting to overthrow you.”

“No.” Zuko held up a finger to her. “Not my friends. Their harebrained supporters. What’d they call themselves, again? The clear pyramid?”

“Glass Triangle,” Mai corrected. “Triangle because they have members from each of the three nations, and clear because it’s supposed to symbolize “transparency.” Sure, it’s true that they’re the Avatar’s supporters. But who do you think is goading them on? A mob doesn’t have a brain to think for itself.”

“Aang and the others wouldn’t do that.” Zuko shook his head. “I know them. The Avatar’s job is to keep the balance between the four elements. Overthrowing me doesn’t accomplish that.”

Mai made a low noise in her throat, but said nothing. “What?” Zuko asked. “You have something on your mind?” 

Mai stood and took the towel from him before bending down to kiss him on the forehead. “No, Zuko. I’m sure you’re right. You know them best, after all.” She ran her hand through his hair. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Zuko laid back and listened to her quietly shut the door. He rolled over to his side, before reaching under his head to fluff his pillow. After pulling the blanket over his shoulders, he pushed it off again, realizing he was too hot for a blanket. Sighing, he knew he wouldn’t get much sleep that night.  _ Aang, what’s going on over there? _ he thought. 

#  . . . . .

The next morning, Katara woke when a bird landed on the windowsill and began chirping a morning song. She rolled over to see Aang’s side of the bed was empty. She got up and found him in the bathroom, but before she could say a word, he finished washing and walked out. Katara hurried through her morning routine and followed him. 

“So? What’d they say last night?” Sokka asked as Katara and Aang walked into the private dining room. Sokka and Toph had already filled their plates with cuts of meat, bread, and fruit, while Suki sipped from a cup. Katara could tell just from the smell that it was ko-nuk tea, even though she hadn’t tasted the tea in years. 

“Yeah, what’d they say? I didn’t come all this way and hurl over the side of Appa’s saddle to hear that it’s private,” Toph added. 

“You know, you’re worse than Sokka,” Suki told her. She turned to Katara and Aang. “Don’t feel pressured to tell us before you’re ready.” 

“Thanks, Suki.” Katara sat across from her and placed a mango on the plate in front of her. Next to her, she saw Aang fill a bowl with porridge and immediately begin shoveling it into his mouth so he wouldn’t have to speak. Katara knew he was acting childish, but she couldn’t blame him. This was the biggest dilemma he had faced since the end of the war. 

“I haven’t been in Omashu in ages. I wonder if Bumi still has Flopsy,” Sokka said as he placed a piece of meat between two slices of bread. “I’ll probably go ask him after breakfast. We don’t have any real plans today, right?”

“Nope,” Katara replied, forcing pep into her voice. “The whole day is free right now.” She picked up the mango and rubbed it on the sleeve of her dress. 

“Suki, I was wondering if you could help me write a letter after breakfast,” Toph said. 

“Sure, I don’t mind. Who’s it to?” Suki asked. 

Toph shrugged. “An old friend.”

As she listened idly, Katara bit into the mango. It was sour and rancid, so she spit it out onto her plate. “I’m not feeling that hungry,” she said, pushing her plate away. “I think I’ll take a walk.”

“Want any company?” Sokka asked. 

“Thanks, but I’m okay,” Katara said as she stood and dusted off her dress. “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

Katara followed the labyrinth-like hallways through the mountain until she found her way outside. The sun lit up the sides of the mountains, casting them in rosy hues as it rose. She walked to a nearby bench and sat, reveling in the touch of the rising sun on her face. 

“There is always beauty in beginnings, isn’t there?” Katara looked up to see Grand Master Iroh standing nearby. “May I sit with you for a moment?” he asked. 

“Grand Lotus Iroh, good morning,” she said, scrambling to her feet to bow to him. He returned her bow and sat on the bench. 

“Please, just Iroh is fine,” he said. “I’ve always loved the sunrises of Omashu.”

“You’ve visited before?” Katara asked. 

Iroh chuckled. “Yes, I traveled all over the world during the course of my military career. Now though, I get to sit and enjoy the beauty of many of those places in my retirement.”

“I don’t think many people would consider being a Grand Lotus retirement,” Katara teased. 

Iroh smiled. “Work you enjoy is never truly work. What do you enjoy, my dear?”

The question caught Katara off guard. “Enjoy? Well, I guess I enjoy spending time with Aang and our friends. I enjoy waterbending. I enjoy helping people, however I can.” 

“And would you consider any of those things work?”

Katara sighed, thinking of how she and Aang had gone through the morning without saying a word to each other. “Sometimes,” she admitted. 

Iroh smiled and said, “You are young to have so many troubles on your mind. Unfortunately the Universe doles out challenges, whether we want them or not.” He looked over the city, and Katara followed his gaze. Packages zipped along the chutes, merchants called out their wares, and children played with rubber balls in the streets. Nearby, a donkey brayed, and roosters crowed in response. 

“I don’t know how to convince him,” Katara admitted after a while. “I had a feeling the Order would suggest something like this, but I didn’t realize he would take it so badly.”

“I believe young Aang is sensitive to feeling as though he has failed others,” Iroh said. “The world has looked to him for guidance, even when he was little more than a boy. But one day he will see the joy that children bring, however they were begot.” 

“I hope so,” Katara replied. 

“And you, my dear? How has this challenge been weighing on you?”

“Which challenge? Being infertile? Hearing that my partner has to take other lovers? Knowing that Aang will never be all mine?” She grinned so he wouldn’t think she was simply complaining about her life. 

Iroh chuckled. “All of them.”

“The Order’s plan is… a relief, actually. I guess partly because we’ll find out if the problem was with me or Aang. I feel like I’m under so much pressure to conceive a child. But like Bumi said, I don’t just want to be an airbender factory, popping out a baby every year. I would have liked to have children. I always pictured myself being a mother one day. I guess it’s just not in my destiny. And I have to live with that. Either I’m infertile, or Aang is. Either way, I won’t be having children. But there’s no use dwelling on what could have been.” She sighed, feeling the loss in her lungs. 

“What else?” Iroh prompted gently. 

“This thing with Aang. I always knew I’d have to share him with the world. He’s the Avatar. And out of everyone in the world, he chose to love me. That should be enough. I didn’t expect to share him like this,” she said, gesturing broadly. “But that’s another thing that I can’t control, so I shouldn’t dwell on it.”

“Sometimes a ship must sail on the same wind for a while in order to reach a new destination,” Iroh replied. He smiled at her, then turned to watch a pair of morning doves fly overhead. 

“Then there’s the fact that he doesn’t even want to do this,” Katara added. “But he’s got to have children. I think he knows that, deep down. He just doesn’t want to face it.” Katara drew a leg up to the bench and rested her chin on it. “Did you ever have children?” 

Iroh stroked his thinning beard. “A son. His name was Lu-Ten, and he was the pride of my life. He was a sweet lad, and a brave soldier. His time on this earth was short, but I believe one day I’ll see him again.”

“I’m sorry,” Katara said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

Iroh smiled at her. “No, my dear, it’s good that you did. It’s in talking about our loved ones that we keep their memories alive inside of us. I think about Lu-Ten every day, but it is only in talking about him with others that I can bring him alive again, for a little while.” Iroh sighed. “Ever since Lu-Ten died, Zuko is like a son to me. Traveling with him gave me purpose, but now that he has found his destiny, I fear he may not need me as much as he once did.”

“I’m sure he needs you more than you think,” Katara replied. 

#  . . . . .

“Well? What’s your report? Is the Avatar behind this Glass Triangle?” Zuko asked the group of advisors who sat in a semi-circle in the royal hall. 

“Sire, our sources do not believe that the Avatar is related to this threat. While it is clear that the members of the Glass Triangle wish to see Avatar Aang ascend your throne, nothing points to the fact that the Avatar has been encouraging this,” Advisor Liu said. 

Zuko was unable to resist shooting Mai a self-satisfied smirk as she sat beside him in the throne room. 

“However,” Liu continued. “We cannot rule this out.” 

Zuko felt his face turn red as he saw Mai smirk back at him. “Fine. What does the Council of Advisors suggest?”

An older man tapped a feather pen against his cheek. “For now,” he said in a slow, guttural voice, “we suggest closely monitoring the situation. This plot may yet fizzle out. Considering the Glass Triangle seems to lack any centralized leadership, if we discount the possibility of Avatar Aang’s involvement, the threat to your position does not seem particularly salient.”

Zuko shook his head. “What are you saying?”

“Advisor Chen is saying, I believe, that there’s nothing to worry about yet,” Advisor Zhang replied. “Our sources in the water tribes and Earth Kingdom will keep us updated on any developments. For now, there doesn’t seem to be a real threat.”

After the meeting, when the advisors had bowed and left the throne room, Mai got up and sat on Zuko’s lap on the throne. 

“Happy, Fire Lord Zuko?” she asked. 

“Relieved, actually,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I still don’t believe Aang has anything to do with this.”

“I’m glad,” Mai said as she planted soft kisses along his jaw. 

“This is… an unusual display of affection,” Zuko said as he pressed his lips to her neck. “Not that I’m not enjoying this, of course.”

Mai sucked and gently bit his earlobe. Zuko’s arms tightened around her waist, feeling the anticipation growing in his groin. He slowly undid the knot of her robes, sliding one side off her shoulder so he could kiss her collarbone. She moaned softly, and he slid one hand up her robe to squeeze her breast. 

“I just want you in a good mood before our next meeting,” Mai said as she rubbed the back of his neck.

“Mmm. And what meeting is that?” Zuko asked as he lightly bit the skin of her shoulder. 

Mai pulled back and grinned. “Your favorite. Wedding planning.”

#  . . . . .

For the next few days, every time Katara tried to talk to Aang, he brushed her off or made an excuse to avoid her. She grew more frustrated with him as the days shortened and the shadows lengthened. Summer was turning into fall, and Katara needed an answer. 

“I can’t believe he won’t talk to me about this,” she ranted to Suki one night after dinner. “It’s been nearly a week since we talked to the Order. How long can he keep “meditating” on this?” Katara paced a balcony outside Suki and Sokka’s suite. Toph and Sokka had gone to an underground earthbending tournament, and Aang had disappeared with Momo after dinner like he had been doing for days. Suki played with her fans as Katara paced. 

“It does seem really frustrating that he keeps avoiding it,” Suki agreed. 

“I know! I thought he’d jump at the chance. Don’t all men dream of having many lovers? Other men would give their bending for this opportunity!”

“Well, it could just mean he really loves you,” Suki said. “He doesn’t want anyone but you.”

“Maybe he’s afraid of realizing it’s a problem with him, not me.”

“What do you mean?”

Katara stopped and looked at Suki, gesturing with her hands to get her point across. “If he can’t get anyone pregnant, that means I haven’t gotten pregnant because of something to do with him, not me. Maybe he just wants to assume it’s my fault we haven’t had a baby.”

“You really think Aang thinks like that?” Suki asked, her face full of skepticism. 

“Who knows anymore!” Katara threw her hands in the air. Momo flew in from the roof and landed on her outstretched arm. A knock sounded at the door. 

“Suki? It’s Aang. Do you know where Katara is?”

Katara desperately signaled to Suki to say no with a hand cutting across her throat. For once, she just wanted to rant about Aang, her frustration still simmering like a pot on a stove. Momo screeched and jumped off her arm. 

“We’re out here, Aang!” Suki called, ignoring Katara. The door opened, and Katara dropped her hand, but not before glaring at her friend. 

“Hey, Aang,” Suki said as he stepped onto the balcony with them. 

“Uh, hi.” Aang rubbed a hand against his arm. “Katara, can we talk?”

“You know who I haven’t seen in days? Appa. I think I’ll go check on him,” Suki said as she winked at Katara. She folded up her fans and quickly left the suite, leaving Katara and Aang alone. 

“Aang — ” Katara said just as he said, “Katara, I — ”

“Oh, you go first,” she said, gesturing with her hand. 

He sighed. “Can we sit?” They sat cross-legged on the balcony, looking out at the twinkling lights of Omashu. “I think you’re right. I need to do this, even if I don’t want to.”

“Really? That’s great, Aang.” She placed a supportive hand on his knee. Inwardly, she sighed in relief. “I know it’s not easy.”

“We should talk about what this means for us though,” Aang said. 

“What do you mean?”

“I know you said it’s not cheating if you agree to it. So does that mean you still want to be with me?”

“That’s what you’ve been worried about? That we wouldn’t be together if you did this?” Katara smiled to reassure him. 

Aang rubbed his arrow. “Polygamy hasn’t been practiced in any nation in hundreds of years. I didn’t think you’d want to have anything to do with starting it back up again.”

“This… situation. I don’t see it as polygamy,” Katara said. “You’re not marrying these women. You’re not even really getting to know them. Actually, Aang, it’s like you’re just a rooster hopping from coop to coop.”

Aang laughed, but it sounded forced to Katara. “Thanks. A rooster. So you’ll still want to be my partner?”

Katara leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Always, Aang.”

He sighed. “That’s good. Really, really good. How, uh, involved do you want to be with the... rooster process?”

“I mean, I want to travel with you, of course. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll want to meet your… hens,” she said, playfully bumping his shoulder with her own. “But any baby chicks that come out of this arrangement? I’ll consider them my baby chicks, too.” She realized as she said this that she hadn’t given much thought to Aang’s future children, but she knew without a doubt in her heart that she would love them as if they were her own. 

“Katara, I could search all three nations and never find a woman like you,” Aang said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “I don’t know anyone as selfless as you.”

For the briefest moment, a memory of lying with Zuko flashed in Katara’s mind. His fingertips lightly stroked her side as he kissed the skin under her ear. “I… I don’t know if I’d say I’m selfless,” Katara admitted. “I don’t intend to share your affection with any of these hens.”

Aang laughed and said, “You don’t need to worry about that. I could never love anyone the way I love you.”

* * *

AN: What did you think about this chapter? Do you have any predictions on where this story is going? I want to hear all your thoughts, the good, the bad, and the dirty!

ICYMI: I know a lot of us escape into reading/gaming/television to avoid pain in the world, and that’s a good and necessary thing for your mental health. But when you have the mental bandwidth, please examine your life to see how you benefit from systemic racisms, and research how you can do your part to work against racism and racist systems. If you are a citizen over 18 in the US, please register to vote! Even if you don’t live in a swing state! 


	13. Chapter 13

#  Part 2: Chapter 13

“When beauty breaks and falls asunder

I feel no grief for it, but wonder.

When love, like a frail shell, lies broken,

I keep no chip of it for token.

I never had a man for friend

Who did not know that love must end.

I never had a girl for lover

Who could discern when love was over.

What the wise doubt, the fool believes–

Who is it, then, that love deceives?”

_ -Louise Bogan, “Juan’s Song” _

* * *

_ Dear Zuko. I hope this letter finds you well. It’s Toph, or actually, Suki writing for Toph. (Hi Zuko! Suki here.) I’m writing to let you know that we’re leaving Omashu to travel around the Earth Kingdom. Eventually we’re going to the Southern and Northern Water Tribes and the Fire Nation as well. Omashu was nice enough. As you might have heard, Bumi is now a full-fledged member of the Order, so Omashu is being governed by a group of elected officials that make all the big decisions together. Maybe that’s something you can think about for the Fire Nation. Anyway, I hope you aren’t taking yourself too seriously over there. Attached is a general itinerary of our trip, in case you want to send us a hawk or anything. Whatever. It’s up to you. Anyway, that’s all I have to say. You don’t have to write anything else, Suki. (Oops, I thought she was still dictating, sorry.) Your friend, Toph (and Suki) _

Zuko dropped the letter on his desk when he finished reading it. Mai looked up from studying a book full of fabric samples. 

“Anything interesting?” she asked. 

“A letter from Toph,” Zuko said. 

“Hmm? What does the earthbender want?” Mai continued flipping through the book of fabric.

“Nothing. She was just letting me know that the group is going to be traveling again soon.”

“Well, she must want something. She’s got to know how busy you are with running a nation and planning a wedding. She wouldn’t write without a reason.”

“I don’t know, Mai, it seemed pretty innocent,” Zuko said. He bent over Mai’s shoulder to look at the book. “What’s this fabric for?”

“The royal tailor sent it over. It’s for our wedding robes. I was thinking this color silk for you,” she said, flipping to an earlier page, “and this for me.” She pointed at another square. To Zuko, the silk squares were an identical shade of red.

“Whatever you want. You know I don’t really care.” When she looked up at him, he quickly backtracked. “Not that I don’t care about getting married. I just don’t care what I wear. I’d marry you naked in front of the entire nation if I had to.” 

Mai laughed. “Wouldn’t that be an interesting tradition,” she said as she continued flipping through the book.

“You’re picking out fabric already?” Zuko asked. “The wedding isn’t for another ten months.”

“Zuko, Zuko, Zuko,” Mai said with mock seriousness. “When will you learn that planning a wedding is like planting a seed? You must give it time and care if you want it to grow into a tree.” 

He laughed. “You sound like my uncle.”

Mai smiled, and without looking up, she pointed to the letter. “Do you plan to write back to the earthbender?” she asked. 

Zuko looked at the letter on his desk. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”

#  . . . . .

“I thought traveling by air bison was bad, but this is way worse,” Toph complained from her seat in the wagon bed. 

“That’s the price you pay for having an entourage,” Sokka replied from the front seat. 

“We’ll reach Wan Bay before tonight,” Suki said. “And then we’re traveling by ship, which should be a lot faster.”

“Is Wan Bay a port? Or is it a town? I guess I mean, does Wan Bay have… women?” Aang asked. He cringed, and Katara could feel the awkwardness radiating off him. 

“Yep!” Sokka answered cheerfully. “Operation Aang Bang Gang starts tonight!” 

“Sokka! A little sensitivity, please?” Suki asked. 

“Oh, right!” Sokka lowered his voice and leaned in. “Operation Aang Bang Gang starts tonight!” he whispered. 

“I still don’t understand why the Order wants this whole repopulation business to be a covert mission,” Toph said. “Won’t people figure it out when airbending babies start popping up in towns nine months after Aang visits?”

“It’s not so much that we expect it to be a secret forever,” Katara said as she reached for Aang’s hand. “It just might be… easier for a while if it’s kept on a need-to-know basis.” Aang smiled at her gratefully as he squeezed her hand, but she could see the pain in his eyes.  _ I know _ , she tried to telegraph to him.  _ I feel it too. _

“For now, the only people who really need to know are the village leaders and the town’s chosen daughters,” Suki added. “The Order will take care of the details.”

“You mean the rest of the entourage doesn’t even know?” Toph asked. 

“No,” Aang answered. Katara noticed his mouth was set in a firm line. “As far as the representatives from the three nations are concerned, we’re just traveling on peace missions like before.”

#  . . . . .

Katara watched Aang push food around his plate during the Wan Bay banquet. As the guests of honor, the five were seated at the head of the biggest table in the crowded room. Next to her, Sokka was busy entertaining the town elders with war stories, but Aang had hardly said a word since they arrived at Wan Bay. Nearby, Katara saw Iroh and other members of the Order deep in discussion with the town leader, Guren Cho. Katara tried to read his expression, but Guren Cho kept his face as blank as a mask. 

After dinner, a young man escorted Katara and Aang to a guest suite. “My name is Ling. Please let me know if I can do anything to make your stay in Wan Bay more pleasant,” he said as he opened the door to the suite. 

“Thank you, Ling. I think Avatar Aang and I would just like some privacy for now,” Katara replied. Ling bowed and left, leaving Katara with the pieces of her broken relationship. 

“Iroh said he’d come see us when it’s time,” she said. Aang nodded and sat on the bed without looking at her. 

“You’re doing the right thing, you know,” she added. “Everyone knows you don’t want to do this, but you’re choosing to do it anyway to keep the balance of the elements. And I understand why you’re doing it. You’re just a rooster, remember?” Again, he nodded without speaking or looking at her. Feeling restless, she walked around the room, drawing a line in the dust of a bookshelf, closing the shades, and opening empty drawers and cabinets as she thought about the conversation she had had with Iroh only yesterday. 

“The Order will take care of everything,” he had assured her. “All you have to do is support Aang. All Aang has to do, of course, is —”

“I know,” Katara had interrupted. “I’m curious about something. How are these women chosen?”

“Well, we’ll consult with the town elders and leaders, of course. We have a few criteria. First, the women must be single. Unmarried, unbetrothed.” He had looked away before saying, “Virginal.” Then he had cleared his throat and continued. “They must be healthy and come from families with no known bending ability, to increase the likelihood that a child will be born an airbender. They must also be known for their kindness, generosity, and intelligence. Of course, each woman must agree to this arrangement as well. They will understand that they will spend one night with the Avatar, but will likely never see him again. Any children that come as a result of the coupling will be brought up in an airbending academy. As soon as the child is born, or if she does not conceive, she will be free to marry.” 

Katara wished she could picture these faceless women who would likely bear her partner’s children. Would they be taller than her? Prettier? Smarter? At the same time though, she continued to state to both Aang and Iroh that she did not want to meet any of the chosen women. As Katara riffled through the guest suite, she pulled open a wooden box that contained a pai sho set. 

Thinking it might take his mind off the night to come, she called out, “Aang, do you want to play pai sho with me?”

Before he could respond, someone knocked on the door. 

“Aang?” Iroh called. “It’s time.” 

Aang stood and, without looking at Katara, strode from the room. 

#  . . . . .

_ Dear Toph (and Suki). It is good to hear from you. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write back. Two months have passed since I got your letter. As you know, I’m very busy, but I should have taken the time to write to you sooner. When my uncle returned to the Fire Nation after his short time with you, I felt as though I was caught up on your adventures. It sounds like your peace missions are still very beneficial to the towns and villages you visit. Mostly everything is going well here in the Fire Nation. The rumors of a coup against me have more or less ceased. I find your report on Omashu interesting. Maybe one day I will look into forming a council of elected officials. Then I would be free to step down from the throne and travel with the group again. Haha. Mai and I are planning our wedding, as you know. The ceremony will be held on the summer solstice, as is the royal tradition. That’s only eight short months away. I hope you will all be able to make it. I regret not keeping more in touch these past five years. I plan to remedy that. Stay well, and please keep me updated on your travels. Sincerely, Fire Lord Zuko _

Zuko rolled up the parchment and took it to the hawkery, housed in a tower on the eastern wall of the city. When he arrived, he spotted the royal hawker cooing to the hawks among the feathers and bird droppings. 

“Fire Lord! How many I be of service?” she asked as he approached. 

“I need to send a letter. Tie this to your fastest hawk,” he instructed. 

“Of course, Sire. What’s the intended destination?”

“The Southern Water Tribe.”

“Very good, Sire.” She opened a cage with a large, black hawk, its head covered with a hood. After tying the letter with a red ribbon to the hawk’s left leg, she clicked her tongue, and the hawk hopped onto her leather glove. “Would you like to watch, Fire Lord?”

“Oh, um, yes,” he admitted. He followed her outside, where she removed the hood and threw her arm into the air. The hawk took wing immediately, and was soon only a speck of black in the sky. “I always find this moment beautiful,” she said. “Would you like anything else, Your Highness?”

“No, thank you. That’ll be all,” Zuko said as he continued to watch the black speck. “Actually,” he said as she turned away. “Do you know how long it will take before the hawk reaches the South Pole?”

“Argo is one of my fastest,” she said, the pride clear in her voice. “Your letter should be there in less than four days.”

Zuko nodded and thanked her. When he looked back to the sky, the black speck had disappeared. He turned and walked back to his study, already picturing Suki reading Toph the letter over a warm fire in a water tribe tent. Aang and Katara might be there too, but he doubted it. For some reason, he thought Toph would want to keep knowledge of their correspondence limited to herself and Suki. 

When he got back to his study, he found Mai sitting at his desk. She wrinkled her nose. 

“Were you at the hawkery?”

“How’d you know?” he asked as he straightened some papers on the desk. 

“You smell like a dead rat,” she said. 

He looked down at his robes. “I guess I do, don’t I?” He grinned at her. “Want to give your loving fiancé a kiss?”

“Ew, Zuko, no!” Mai said with a laugh. “Don’t you dare!” She picked up a letter-opener and pretended to threaten him with it. “What were you doing there, anyway?” she asked as she dropped the letter-opener onto the desk. 

“Sending off wedding invitations, like you asked,” Zuko said.  _ Not exactly a lie _ , he reasoned to himself. 

“You don’t have to send them yourself, Zuko. Just writing them and giving them to Ming is good enough. She’ll do the rest.”

“Oh, sure.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to think of how to change the topic. “I forget, did we decide on a spicy cocoa cake or passionfruit cake?”

“Passionfruit, why?”

“Just couldn’t remember.” He walked to the window and looked out at the clouds, wondering how far the hawk Argo had gotten. 

“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Mai said. Zuko turned to look at her. “It’s not wedding related. This is about the Avatar and the Glass Triangle.”

“Really? I thought that situation was behind us. The royal advisors haven’t heard of any developments in weeks.”

“Maybe they haven’t, but I have.”

Zuko dropped into a chair across from his desk. “What are you talking about?”

“You remember Shan Lin? The Fire Nation representative traveling with the Avatar and his friends.”

“Shan Lin? No, I don’t think so.”

Mai sighed and waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter. Once I knew he was traveling with the Avatar, I sent him a letter by hawk. He’s been doing some… surveillance for me.”

“You hired someone to spy on Aang? Mai, that’s ridiculous.” Zuko rubbed his temples.

Mai leaned back in Zuko’s desk chair. “I knew you’d jump to that conclusion. First of all, no, I have not given him any money. I may have mentioned the possibility of career advancement or a second home on Ember Island, but nothing that would outright point to bribery. Second of all, it’s proved more useful than you’d imagine.”

Zuko sighed. “Fine, I’ll bite. What has Shan Lin said about Aang?”

Mai smiled and steepled her fingers. “Before our trip to Ember Island, the Avatar and his group would stay in a village for a week, sometimes two, before traveling to a new town. This was all part of their “peace missions,” rebuilding the world after the end of the war. They would be treated to banquets and even festivals in their honor. Now though, they only stay in the same town for two, three nights. There are no festivals, and the banquets are smaller, barely more than group dinners apparently. The Avatar himself is frequently missing from official meetings with local leaders. Instead, the water tribe girl acts on his behalf.”

“What are you getting at, Mai?” Zuko asked. 

“Don’t you get it? What’s the only thing that’s changed since we saw them two months ago?”

Zuko racked his memory, but it came up blank. He shook his head in confusion. 

“Zuko, that’s when we first learned about the Glass Triangle.”


	14. Chapter 14

#  Part 2: Chapter 14

AN: I’m using a slight variation of the Gregorian calendar, because I am not creative enough to come up with 12 new month names and somehow weave them into a story organically. If you have any suggestions, let me know! Otherwise, the months will be the first few letters of the Gregorian month (i.e., “Jan-”) followed by the last few letters of the season (“-inter”) to create a new month (“Janinter”). I don’t believe any other author does this, but if you’ve heard of someone else doing this before, drop me a note! (Sorry in advance to any south-hemisphere readers for the confusion.) (Also, in this universe, I’m assuming summer is summer all over the world, like the show seems to assume.) 

“An arm of flame reaches from water-green glass,

Behind the wall I know waterlilies

Drinking their light, transforming light and our eyes

Skythrown under water, clouds under those flowers,

Walls standing on all things stand in a city noon

Who will not believe a waterlily fire.

Whatever can happen in a city of stone,

Whatever can come to a wall can come to this wall.”

_ -Muriel Rukeyser, excerpt from “Waterlily Fire” _

* * *

“Guess who got a letter from the Fire Nation!” Suki shouted as she pushed her way into the tent. She waved a piece of paper toward the group. 

“Who?” Toph asked. Katara noticed an edge to Toph’s voice, but she couldn’t decipher it. 

“Aang! But it’s from Iroh, so it’s technically addressed to all of us,” Suki said. She hopped from one foot to the other as she warmed herself in front of the fire. 

“Go ahead and read it,” Aang said with a small smile. “We haven’t heard anything from Iroh since he went back to the Fire Nation.”

“What was that, four weeks ago?” Sokka asked as he picked his teeth with his dagger next to the fire. 

“Six,” Katara said. “It’s been eight since we were at Omashu.”  _ And since we saw Zuko _ , she thought. 

“Well, someone needs to read it!” Toph said. “I’d do it myself, of course, if I’d ever gotten around to learning how.”

Suki laughed and pulled off her fur-lined gloves with her teeth. “Okay, here goes: ‘Dear Aang, and dear friends.’ Aww, so cute.”

“Suki, just read it,” Toph said. “No commentary until it’s over.”

“Fine, fine. ‘Dear Aang, and dear friends. I write to inform you of good news! I recently received a hawk from Guren Cho of Wan Bay. As you may remember, Wan Bay was our first stop after leaving Omashu. Guren Cho’s letter stated that, as of late Octobumn, all three maidens seem to be with child! In more good news, Tzu Rhod from Kyoshi Island wrote to me as well to announce that two of the three maidens of Kyoshi are also with child! Congratulations to you, Aang! With any luck, we will have at least five young pupils at the airbending academy by next Maypring. I have not yet heard from the town leaders of the other places you have visited, but they all have instructions from the Order to send a hawk to me as soon as they have news. In the meantime, I am enjoying spending time with my nephew and his lovely fiancée. Their wedding will be held next Junmer, on the summer solstice. As per our discussion, I have said nothing to them about the change of purpose in the peace missions. However, I do look forward to telling everyone of Aang’s good news when the time is right. Please write to me as often as you can. Yours truly, Iroh.”

“Congrats, Twinkletoes!” Toph said as she pounded Aang on the back. 

“Five already! That’s incredible,” Katara said. Her eyes filled with tears, and she leaned over to kiss Aang on the cheek.  _ These are happy tears _ , she told herself. 

“Well, I’d call Operation Aang Bang Gang a success already!” Sokka grabbed a bottle of rice wine from his pack. “This calls for a celebration!”

#  . . . . .

Sokka and Toph needed no help finishing a bottle of rice wine each before the evening’s end. While Aang, Katara, and Suki prepared for bed, Sokka and Toph snored by the fire. 

“I don’t know who’s louder, him or her,” Suki said as she plugged her ears with her fingers. “I have no idea how I’m going to fall asleep next to these cow-walruses.”

Katara smiled. “I’d offer to let you share Aang’s and my tent, but —”  _ it’s our first night together in weeks _ , she thought. 

“No, no, I wasn’t suggesting that. Just complaining. Go ahead, you two. I’ll see you in the morning,” Suki said as she ushered them out of the tent. Katara and Aang struggled through the piercing wind of the South Pole to their own tent, where Katara held the flap open for Aang. He collapsed on their furs as soon as he got inside. Groaning, he pulled the furs out from under him so he could burrow into their warmth.

“Did you have too much rice wine too?” Katara asked with a giggle. Aang rolled onto his back and watched her tie the tent flap closed. 

“Maybe,” he said with a hiccup. 

“It’s like Suki and I are the only adults in the group,” Katara teased. She blew out the lantern and crawled under the furs to lie beside him. 

“Oh, you definitely are,” Aang agreed as he wrapped his arms around her. He stroked her hair gently with one mittened hand. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“How did you react to the news?”

“From Iroh? I’m really, really happy for you. I’m glad the Order’s plan is actually working.”

“No, I don’t mean how you feel about it now. I mean, what did you first feel? When Suki read the letter.”

_ Guilt. Jealousy. Shame. _ “Happy, Aang. I felt happy, just like I do now.” She snuggled her face against his shoulder. 

She heard Aang breath a sigh of relief. “Good. That’s good. I just didn’t know if you were upset. Especially since, well…”

“What?” Katara prompted. She worried he’d fallen asleep. 

“Since I guess it means you can’t have children,” he continued. “I mean, if I have fathered at least five pregnancies already, that means… the problem we have isn’t with me.”

“Oh.” She shut her eyes against the darkness of the tent. “I hadn’t thought about that. Well, it’s like I said before, in Omashu. Your baby chicks are my baby chicks too.” He kissed her, and Katara could taste the rice wine on his lips. 

“Thank you, Katara. I love you.”

“I love you too, Aang.” She sat up and threw a leg over his hips, straddling him. Then, reaching down, she stroked him through his furs. 

“What are you doing?” he asked. 

“In the Southern Water Tribe,” she said, bending low to whisper in his ear. “We call this ‘keeping warm.’”

“But… you probably won’t get pregnant. Not after all this time.”

Katara tweaked his nose. “That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy each other anyway!” she said, forcing herself to smile into the darkness. 

“Wait. Can we talk about something first?”

“Of course. What’s wrong?” Katara asked. 

“Nothing’s… wrong. Not exactly. I just, I know this hasn’t been easy on you. And now that we know that... you can’t have kids, I want to suggest something.”

“Yeah?” Katara’s stomach flip-flopped as she wondered where he was leading the conversation. 

“I’ve been involved with several women. Obviously. You know that. I just want to say that, well, I’m okay if you want to get involved with other men. I’m not saying you have to. You and I are still partners, of course. I don’t mean I want to share your love, or anything.” Aang chuckled, but Katara could hear how nervous he was. “You know I don’t love these women. I don’t even know them. I just… I’ll understand if you want companionship on the nights I’m being a rooster.”

Katara laughed. “I appreciate the offer, Aang. We’re definitely in a weird situation, no doubt about that. But who could ever replace you?”

#  . . . . .

_ Dear Zuko. Thanks for the letter. Don’t worry about how long it took to write it. We’ve been pretty busy ourselves. I got your letter at the South Pole when we were still there, but now we’re already halfway to Ba Sing Se. We’re mostly stopping at towns near the sea, but occasionally we travel inland for a day or two to see other towns. I’m just glad to have left the South Pole. It was cold enough in early Novemn to freeze the balls off an air bison. I’m sure Appa would agree. Our goal is to reach the North Pole by mid Decinter for the winter solstice. Katara’s old master, Pakku, is traveling with us. Boy, is he a sourpuss. Now I know where Katara gets it. Yes, Suki, write that down too. Zuko will get what I’m talking about. Anyway. How are things going over there in the FN? Did you ever figure out who was behind that plot? We got a letter from your uncle. He seems very excited about your wedding next Junmer. We’ve already updated our peace missions itinerary so we can attend the wedding. Wouldn’t miss it. Okay, Suki, I think that about wraps it up. Your friend, Toph (and Suki) _

#  . . . . .

_ Dear Toph (and Suki). I hope this letter reaches you before you leave the North Pole. How was the solstice? In the Fire Nation, our Decinter festival marks the beginning of the end of winter. Fire Nation citizens don’t enjoy the winter like the water tribes do. Haha. In your last letter, you asked about the plot against me. We heard it was from an anti-Fire Nation group called the Glass Triangle. Have you heard anything about this during your travels? Supposedly there are factions in the Earth Kingdom, both water tribes, and even in the Fire Nation. My advisors are keeping an eye on the situation. I was excited to learn that you plan to come to Mai’s and my wedding. Now that it’s six months away, everyone acts like it’s tomorrow. I had a royal robe fitting yesterday. After all the cake sampling I’ve been doing, I don’t know if you’ll be able to tell me from my uncle the next time you see me. Haha. I hope you are all doing well. I look forward to your next letter. Yours, Zuko _

#  . . . . .

_ Dear Sparky. Hello from the Senlin Abbey! Aang and Katara and Sokka have been telling us plenty of stories about you and that bounty hunter named June and her shirshu. I don’t know who that June lady is, but I like her! I might be blind, Suki, but I know you’re giving me that look. Just write it down. It’s my letter, not yours. So anyway. Four months till the big day, huh? We had already left the North Pole by the time your letter arrived, but Chief Arnook sent it on to us. Nice guy overall. Really likes Sokka. Didn’t care so much for Suki. (Not true! He was very polite to me.) I haven’t heard anything about a glass triangle. (I haven’t either. This is Suki, by the way.) Hopefully it’s just baseless rumors. Our peace missions are still going well. The actual mission part has taken a different meaning though. Yes, Suki, he’s going to find out anyway! (Sorry, I don’t think she should have said that.) Aang is starting to seem a little frayed around the edges. I think it’ll be nice for him to take a break when we visit you. Katara has been a huge pain in the butt. Yes she has, Suki, you know she has. Sokka has been pretty good. And you know of course how me and Suki are doing. So that’s about it for now. Your friend, Melon Lord (and Suki) _

#  . . . . .

_ Dear Melon Lord (and Suki). According to the updated itinerary you sent with your last letter, you should be at the Shanmai Mountains. I hope you are, at least, because that’s where I’m sending this letter. It’s early Apring, if that helps. When I last wrote to you in late Decinter, I thought the wedding planning was out of control. I had no idea how bad it would get, and it’s still two months until the summer solstice. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I’m trying to convince Mai it’s not too late to just elope, move to a swamp, and live on possum-chicken for the rest of our lives. She, surprisingly, does not seem too keen on this plan. Haha. I hope Aang, and all of you, see my wedding as a chance to relax for a bit. Spirits know I won’t. Again, please let me know if you hear anything of the Glass Triangle. It’s very important. Please keep this information to yourself, but last week when I was walking in the garden, an arrow struck a tree by my head. Carved into the shaft was a triangle. I can only suspect it was an assassination attempt. Since then, I have been more vigilant in security. Stay well. Yours, Sparky _

#  . . . . .

_ Dear Sparky. Happy almost-wedding! I don’t know if you’ll receive this letter before we arrive at the capital, but I figured I’d better write just in case. (Actually, I, Suki, am still writing. Hello!) I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since we saw you at Ember Island. Time flies and all that. Crazy that there was an attempt on your life! Listen though. I need to tell you something. Something’s up with Aang and Katara. I can’t tell you everything right now. But I think you should know that— _

Zuko looked up when someone rapped on the door to his study. 

“You may enter,” he called. The number of people interrupting his days had grown exponentially the closer his wedding day approached. Now, at only two days away, he could barely find a moment to himself. 

A young man slid open the door. “Sire, the Avatar and your other guests have arrived!” The kid looked like he could barely contain his excitement. 

“Great. Good. Thank you for letting me know,” Zuko said. Once the kid slid the door shut, Zuko placed the letter in the top drawer of his desk, stood, and straightened his robes. He checked his reflection in the glass of the window, smoothing his flyaway hairs and straightening his royal headpiece. He cleared his throat and said, “Avatar Aang, good to see you. Aang, how’s it been? Katara, you look lovely. Master Katara, thank you so much for coming.” Shaking his head, he stepped out of his study and tried to keep his feet from hurrying to the royal atrium. He passed innumerable staff and guests, each bowing to him and smiling. He nodded to each, feeling a little stifled under all the “Congratulations, Fire Lord” lavished on him. 

As he stepped into the atrium, he was immediately enveloped in a massive bear hug. 

“Zuko! It’s been too long!” Sokka squeezed him as if he was trying to choke him. “Can you believe it? The first wedding in the Boomerang Squad.” Sokka wiped the corner of his eye.  _ Was the man really crying? _ Zuko wondered. 

“Ignore him,” Suki said as she gave Zuko a quick side hug. “We ran out of meat rations two days ago. We’ve only had bread and vegetables lately, so he’s a bit emotional.”

“It’s great to see you two. Where are the others?” Zuko asked. As far as he could see, Sokka and Suki were the only members of the group in the atrium. 

“Don’t worry, they’re coming,” Suki said. She pointed to the large double doors just as they flew open with a crash. Toph stood in the center of the doorway, her arms wide. 

“Where’s the groom?” Her voice thundered across the atrium. She stomped her heel onto the floor, and suddenly a rock wall appeared behind Zuko. The wall slid across the floor, forcing Zuko ahead of it. “Ah, there he is!” She grabbed his face between her hands and kissed him on both cheeks. She pulled his face down to hers and whispered, “It’s good to see you, Sparky.” She released him. “Well, not ‘see,’ of course.”

Zuko looked out the open doors to see Aang and Katara climbing the steps to the palace. 

“Aang, Katara! Welcome to the capital,” Zuko said as he bowed. Aang bowed back, but Katara just smiled. 

“Is that any way to greet old friends?” she asked, stretching out her arms. “Get over here, Fire Lord.” 

Zuko bent down to hug her. She smelled like the first breeze of winter. As he wrapped his arms around her, he held onto her for just a millisecond past propriety. Was it his imagination, or did she squeeze him harder for a moment as he pulled away? 

“Doesn’t he look so handsome?” Toph asked. “I wouldn’t know, but I just assume.”

Suki laughed and said, “He looks like he’s already regretting inviting us.”

Zuko noticed how Aang remained aloof. The airbender looked around the atrium as if he was looking around a theater during a boring play. 

“Mai is, unfortunately, busy at the moment, but my uncle and I would love to have you all in his suite for a private lunch. I made sure the cooks made plum pie for you, Aang.”

Aang seemed to perk up. “Flameo, hotman!”

Zuko led them to his uncle’s suite, where Iroh greeted them warmly. 

“Toph, Suki, Sokka, Katara, Aang. It is so good to see you all again. Please, please, come in. The kitchen staff is just finishing up preparing us lunch.” Iroh showed them into a room decorated with floor pillows arranged around a low, circular table. Zuko felt relief run through him as his uncle took over his duties as host. When the food was brought in, Iroh arranged for the dishes to be served to Suki first, subtly implying that he did not favor the Avatar over Zuko’s other guests. 

“Tell me about your travels! Is it true that the entourage was attacked by a group of moose-lions before you reached Gaoling?”

“That sounds more interesting than it really was,” Sokka said as he popped a pork dumpling into his mouth. “Simple POW! KICKACHOP! And problem solved.”

“We ate so well after that,” Toph added. “And not just moose-lion meat. The nearby villages were very happy we helped them out. Apparently the moose-lions had been terrorizing them for a while.”

“Well, that sounds very exciting. And other news? Are we... free to speak openly yet?” Iroh asked. Zuko looked at his uncle in confusion.  _ What is he referring to?” _ he thought. Glancing at the rest of the group, Zuko noticed Aang give an almost imperceptible shake of his head to Iroh. 

“Everything else has been pretty standard since you traveled back to the Fire Nation,” Katara said. “The peace missions have been going well. We haven’t seen so many Fire Nation ex-pats causing trouble. In fact, many towns are starting to resume trade routes with the Fire Nation. That hasn’t happened in a hundred years.”

“Ah, that’s wonderful!” Iroh said. “Isn’t it, Prince Zuko? Excuse me. Old habit. Fire Lord Zuko.”

“Hang on, what are you all not saying?” Zuko asked. “It’s like you’re all speaking some secret code.” He straightened. “Uncle,” he said, lowering his voice. “Does this have something to do with the Glass Triangle?”

“The what?” Sokka asked. “Glass what?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb. The Glass Triangle. The group of citizens from all three nations who want to see me overthrown. The group that tried to assassinate me a month ago. The group you’ve been recruiting for during your ‘peace missions,’” Zuko said. He felt his anger rising, and the candles around the room grew brighter. 

“Zuko, I don’t think you understand what you’re saying,” Iroh said gently. “Maybe you and I should save this conversation for later.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m a child, Uncle. You don’t know what they’re up to.”

“Seriously, Zuko? Get a grip.” Toph stood, her fists on her hips. “Just think for a second about what you’re saying. You’re accusing us of wanting to overthrow you? We’re your friends! Why would we even want that?”

Zuko realized with a start that he hadn’t thought of that. None of them had ever seen power-hungry. “Because… you think I’m doing a bad job.”

Toph scoffed. “And you think any of us could do it better? No one said being Fire Lord was an easy job or that you wouldn’t mess up occasionally. That’s why you have advisors and Uncle Iroh.”

Zuko looked up at Toph towering over him. “Suki and I hadn’t even heard of the glass whatever when you mentioned it months ago. And you know what? We still haven’t. Didn’t you just hear Sokka? He had no idea what you’re talking about. And you know Sokka can’t lie to save his life.”

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not,” Sokka said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“And why the spirits would you have even invited us to your  _ wedding _ if you really thought that?” Toph added. 

“I… uh… so then what are you all talking about?” Zuko asked. He watched the others exchange looks. “Uncle?”

“It’s not my place to tell you, Nephew,” Iroh replied. 

Aang stood, and placed a hand on Toph’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Toph. Zuko, can we talk outside?”

* * *

AN: Let me know what you think about this chapter with a review or PM! Your feedback is so helpful! I learned of the technique of letter-writing to show time passing from the novel, _An American Marriage_ , by Tayari Jones (highly recommend). Also, if you’re over 18 and a US citizen, have you registered to vote?


	15. Chapter 15

#  Part 2: Chapter 15

AN: I’m making up numbers as I go along. Don’t kill me if my math is all wonky, haha. Also, I’m trying to respond to comments, because I really do appreciate the time you spend sharing your thoughts with me! Classes have started for me, and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, so I’ll be slowing down to a chapter every 2 weeks, posted on Friday or as close to Friday as I can get. 

“At this hour when hearts, deep in their hiding places,

Have begun to hope once more, when they start their vigil

For hands still enfolded in sleeves;

When wine being poured makes the sound

of inconsolable children

who, though you try with all your heart,

cannot be soothed.

When whatever you want to do cannot be done,

When nothing is of any use;

—At this hour when night comes down,

When night comes, dragging its long face,

dressed in mourning,

Be with me,

My tormenter, my love, be near me.”

_ -Faiz Ahmed Faiz, excerpt from “Be Near Me” _

* * *

“What was that all about?” Sokka asked once Aang and Zuko left the room. 

“He’s been under quite a bit of pressure lately,” Iroh said. He sighed and poured a cup of tea. To Katara, it smelled like the grassy aroma of jasmine. “His advisors have mentioned an underground group that calls themselves the Glass Triangle that is seeking to overthrow him. The threats haven’t seemed very credible, but Zuko has been very anxious about it. I suspect he may be getting… additional information from other sources, but he has not shared that with me.”

“Are you worried about the Glass Triangle?” Katara asked. She searched Iroh’s face for any hint of concern. 

Iroh chuckled. “No leader is ever perfect, and there will always be those who think they can do better. In my experience though, this doesn’t necessarily mean everyone thinks the leader is failing. Zuko has been working very hard on rebuilding those trade routes that you mentioned, Katara. And he has raised the taxes on royals in order to reform the schools that had indoctrinated our youths. He hasn’t been sitting in an ivory tower worrying about plots.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” Sokka said. “No offense.”

“Sometimes progress is like the changing of the season. It moves slowly, until you look up and realize the snow has melted and you are surrounded by spring flowers.”

“Do you think Aang is telling him… everything?” Suki asked. 

Katara’s stomach twisted.  _ Oh spirits, I hope not, _ she thought. It was bad enough that Suki had told him a year ago that she hadn’t conceived a child. She didn’t want Zuko to pity her for having a partner who regularly visited concubines. 

“Well, it’s not like he won’t figure it out eventually,” Sokka said. “How’s that airbending academy going, Master Iroh?”

“Splendidly! We have secured wetnurses for the seven current pupils at the Eastern Air Temple. Guru Pathik has his hands full.”

“Who?” Toph asked. 

“Guru Pathik is one of the spiritual centralists that have carried the culture of the Air Nomads through the decades.”

“Spiritual what now?” Suki asked. 

“Spiritual centralists are individuals who have dedicated their lives to the study and maintenance of the Air Nomads’ memories. Guru Pathik is one, of course. He was alive to witness the massacre of the Air Nomads, but he was spared as he has no bending ability. Other spiritual centralists are professors from Ba Sing Se who specialized in Air Nomad history, as well as leaders from towns near the temples that have historically been intertwined with the Air Nomads.” 

“Sounds like a lot of old people,” Toph said as she flicked a crumb off her plate.

Iroh laughed and placed his cup on the table to prevent it from spilling. “Yes, many are old, but others are young, just like you four.”

Katara was only half-listening to Iroh talk about the spiritual centralists. “Seven babies, you said?” she asked. 

“Six airbenders were born in Mayring, and one in early Junmer. We expect one or two before the end of the month. Overall, though, Aang has done quite well.”

“What’re the numbers?” Sokka asked. When Suki glared at him, he shrugged. “What? We’re all wondering it. How fertile is the Arrowhead?”

Iroh smiled. “From all reports, fifty-three maidens have conceived. The Order has been keeping records, of course. Each maiden’s name, town, and date of… conception. Around one out of three maidens conceive after meeting with Aang.”

“Spirits, at that rate, the Air Nomads will be the biggest nation in a few years,” Toph said. 

Sokka counted on his fingers and mouthed some words. “If Aang averages sixty a year, over four decades, let’s say, that’s… over two thousand children. Is that humanly possible?” 

Katara suddenly felt nauseated. “Do you know if they’re all airbenders?” she asked. 

“Apparently a sure sign is an impressive cry after birth,” Iroh said. “Airbenders possess large lungs, even as infants. So far, all seven children’s cries were loud enough to draw crowds.”

“How many people are there in the world, anyway?” Sokka asked, still counting on his fingers. 

“Our best estimates are around fifty million,” Iroh replied. 

“Sounds like he’s still pretty far off from taking over the world with airbenders, then,” Sokka said to Toph. “Still. Fifty-three already. Quite impressive.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” Suki teased, bumping his shoulder with hers. 

Katara looked away, the smell of Iroh’s jasmine tea swirling around her. In her mind, she saw a fenced yard, full of jasmine flowers. In her vision, seven chicks clucked and pecked at the ground, while fifty-three hens sat on fifty-three eggs. In the distance, beyond the fence, she saw two thousand chickens, clucking and flapping their wings. The image was overwhelming.

“I need some air,” she said, pushing herself to her feet. “I’ll catch up with you all later.”

#  . . . . .

As Zuko led Aang to a private balcony, he silently berated himself.  _ Stupid, stupid. Of course they had nothing to do with the Glass Triangle. How could you even believe that? Think about how happy you were to see them all an hour ago. _ He felt like a boar-wolf was pulling him in one direction, and a moose-lion in the other. 

“So, uh, sorry about that,” he said as he offered Aang a seat on the balcony. “I don’t really know what came over me. It was an unfair accusation.”

Aang sat and stared out over the garden that had been Zuko’s mother’s. “It’s okay, Zuko.”

“No, it’s not. I feel like there’s a wedge between me and the group, and I can’t figure out why,” Zuko admitted. “Is it because I’m the Fire Lord?”

“To be honest, Zuko, I didn’t even notice. I’ve… had a lot on my plate lately.”

Despite Aang’s soft tone, the words sliced through Zuko. Aang hadn’t even noticed the distance that had grown between them. “So if it’s not the Glass Triangle, what is it?”

“I… I’m not the last airbender anymore.” Aang turned to face him. Zuko noticed how pale his face was, how dark the circles under his eyes had become. 

“What do you mean? Did you find others?”

“No. I made them. They’re my children.”

Zuko suddenly felt dizzy. “You and Katara had a baby?”

Aang shook his head. “She’s… infertile. So the Order of the White Lotus suggested I take on lovers to restore balance.”

“Does Katara… know that?” Zuko asked. 

Aang laughed. To Zuko, it sounded bitter, hard as ice. “She’s the one who convinced me to do it.”

Zuko tried to connect all the moving pieces in his mind. “So your peace missions have really been you meeting lovers? When did this start?”

“After our trip to Ember Island a year ago.”

“Wow.” He studied Aang, his slouched shoulders, his faraway gaze. “You seem…”

“Resentful? No kidding.” Aang looked out at the garden again. “You said you felt like there was a wedge between you and the group? I’ve been living that way for months.”

Zuko could hear his uncle’s voice in his mind.  _ You were born with two ears and one mouth. It is often better to listen than to speak. _ After a moment, Aang continued. 

“I see how she looks at me, how they all look at me. Like they pity me, but also like I disgust them. I’m the worst type of man.” Aang turned, and Zuko saw the anger flashing in his eyes. “Do you know how many maidens I’ve deflowered? One hundred and sixty-eight. Katara acts like she thinks I have to do this, but she thinks I enjoy this, too. Do you know how dirty I feel? Katara is the only woman I want, but she’s the only woman I can’t really have.”

“You said you have kids?” Zuko asked. Aang nodded. “So… you did your job. You can stop now. Right?”

“The Order expects me to have more.”

“Who cares what the Order expects. You’re the Avatar. And, no offense to them, but it’s your life.” Zuko watched Aang mull over his words. 

“But I have to restore balance,” Aang said.

“You did. You made more airbenders. How many?”

“Probably five so far, but more are already on the way.”

“Any man would be lucky to father five children. If you ask me, that should be enough.”

Aang suddenly turned and pulled Zuko into a tight hug. Zuko realized with surprise that Aang was almost as tall as him. 

“Thanks, Zuko.”

Zuko patted his back. “I’m just glad to hear you’re not part of the Glass Triangle,” he joked.

#  . . . . .

Zuko had apologized to them that he wasn’t able to spend more time with them, but with the wedding only two days away, he was swamped with last-minute preparations. He introduced them to Ming, his head attendant, with the promise that she could help them with anything during their stay in the capital. With a free evening, the group wandered the halls of the Fire Nation palace, watching servants rush around carrying flowers, fabric, and packages. 

“Geez, this place is hectic,” Suki said. “Should we try to find somewhere more quiet?”

“There’s a garden in a courtyard,” Aang said. He led them to the garden he had seen while he talked with Zuko on the balcony. 

“This reminds me too much of Gaoling,” Toph groaned. “Too many servants, guards, manners. And the only bit of nature is manicured to an inch of its life.”

“Weren’t you the one most excited to see Zuko?” Suki teased as they sat on the grass beneath a shady tree. 

Toph wiggled her toes in the dirt. “I was looking forward to seeing him, not rejoining the upper echelon of society.”

Katara noticed again how quiet Aang was. For the past few months, he had been morose, and he could barely keep eye contact with her for more than a few seconds. “How’d it go with Zuko?” she asked quietly. 

“Well, he doesn’t think we’re secretly trying to usurp him.”

Sokka laughed. “That’s good. The Boomerang Squad hasn’t had that much infighting since Katara tried to kill Toph over a few scams.”

“Hey, all three of you were out of control,” Katara said. She turned back to Aang. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Actually, can we talk privately?”

Katara nodded, but she exchanged a look with Suki as she and Aang got up. Suki shrugged, and mouthed,  _ Let me know _ . Aang walked to a pond in the courtyard, where a turtleduck and her ducklings paddled among the lily pads.

“What did you want to talk about?” Katara asked. She noticed the sun beginning to dip below the trees.

Aang removed his boots and dipped his feet into the water. Katara sat next to him, curling her legs underneath her. “Zuko and I talked about… the hens. And I told him how hard it’s been on me.”

Katara looked at him skeptically, and Aang went on. “And Zuko gave me some really good advice. He said it’s my life. I did my job. I made more airbenders. I restored balance among the elements. So I’m done.”

“You’re done?”

“Right. I don’t want to be a rooster anymore.” Aang turned to her and smiled. “I just want to be yours from now on.”

“But… why?” Katara asked. Her mind raced through the repercussions of what Aang was saying. The old feeling of pressure to conceive a child with Aang returned with a hot vengeance. “Aang, your responsibility isn’t over.”

“Why not? I’m sick of living like this. And I know you are too.”

“I don’t love this situation either, but it doesn’t matter what we want. Our lives aren’t just our own. You have a duty to have as many children as you can, whether you wanted that for yourself or not.” Katara felt her heart beating harder, feeling the control she had placed on her emotions starting to slip. 

“Would you have been saying that I need to have as many children as possible if you were the one birthing them?” Aang shot back. 

“Yes,” Katara said. She wondered if that was true. “But you know I can’t.”

“You have no idea what I’m going through, or what I’m sacrificing. I know you’ve never taken another man into your bed while I’m gone. You’re so selfless, Katara,” he said sarcastically. “You can’t even imagine letting me put myself first for once.”

“Don’t talk to me about being selfless, Aang. You’re going through this because something inside  _ me _ is broken. I have to watch you leave every single night, and it’s my fault for not being able to be the woman you need. So don’t think you’re the only one who’s hurting.”

“Katara, you know I never wanted to hurt you. So let’s be done with this whole rooster thing. We can go back to just being us.”

“No, Aang, we can’t. That life is over for us. I wish we could get it back, but it was never meant to be.”  _ I don’t want you to hope I’ll somehow conceive. I don’t want that pressure again _ , she thought. 

“You think you have to convince me to go to these surrogates because you can’t fulfill your duty,” Aang said. “You think if you can get me to make as many children as possible, you’ll redeem yourself to the Universe somehow. Maybe you’re not as selfless as you think you are.”

The accusation stung, but Katara felt the truth in it. She stood. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe I’m just thinking about myself. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s the right thing to do for the world.” She stood and walked back to the palace. 

#  . . . . .

Katara stormed through the halls, ignoring the busy servants and chatty wedding guests. She couldn’t go back to the days when Aang would touch her gently in bed, stroking her, gasping when he pushed inside her, and then, for weeks after, eagerly watching her for any signs of pregnancy. She knew he would never lose hope that one day they would have their own family. And while all she had wanted in the past five years was having a family with Aang, the cycle of his optimism and disappointment would slowly suffocate her. 

“Master Katara, do you need help locating your room?” 

Katara turned and saw Ming, the middle-aged servant dressed in a gray and red robe that Zuko had introduced to them when they had arrived. “No, Ming,” she replied. “I need help locating the Fire Lord.”

“I’m afraid he is busy at the moment,” Ming said. “Would you like me to deliver a message to him?”

Katara ground her teeth and started to say no, but an idea flashed through her mind. “Yes. Please tell him I’d like to speak to him at once. It’s a matter of national security.”

The woman bowed and turned to go. Katara watched her round a corner, and quietly trailed her. As she entered a hallway, Katara noticed her slip into a discrete door next to a tapestry. After a moment, Katara followed. A dark stairwell led to the third floor, where Katara could hear Ming open a squeaky door. She snuck through the door behind her, careful to open it slowly so Ming wouldn’t notice her. Ming knocked on a red door, and opened when someone inside called out to enter. Katara slipped behind a decorative column and waited until Ming left the room and returned to the dark stairwell. When the coast was clear, Katara stepped out from the column and opened the red door. 

#  . . . . .

Zuko was just standing from his desk when the door to his study opened. When he looked up, he felt his heart drop into his stomach. “Katara, what’s this about a national security threat? Is it the Glass Triangle?”

Katara shut the door behind her. Her hair hung loosely down her back, and her dress wrapped around her like blue water, showing off her curves that had only accentuated since they were teenagers. Zuko swallowed nervously. 

“No, you idiot. I just needed to talk to you, and your lackey Ming wouldn’t tell me where you were. This was the only way to find you.”

“Okay, well,” Zuko gestured broadly with his hands. “You found me. So what is it? I’m kinda busy, you know.” He felt his nervousness disguise itself as annoyance. A defense for a defenseless man. 

“You talked to Aang earlier.” Katara said it like a statement, not a question. She approached him, the desk the only thing separating them. 

“Yes,” Zuko replied. With her proximity, he could smell an ocean breeze wafting off her. 

“And you told him he should follow his heart, is that it?”

“Basically, I suppose. It’s his life, and he should do what he wants with it.”

“And what about duty, huh? What about responsibility to the world? I would have thought that the Fire Lord of all people would know what that’s like,” she spat. Her voice had more venom than a scorpion-snake. 

“I know exactly what that’s like,” Zuko shot back. “Which is why I didn’t want him to waste his life following other people’s expectations.” Katara’s blue eyes sparked with anger like a firebender’s. 

“How could you say this is a waste of his life?” 

Zuko felt the candles on his desk burn hotter. “Because it’s not what he wants! He wants a different life, Katara, and I get that. I really do.”

“What are you talking about?”

Zuko rubbed his temples. He didn’t want to explain this to her. Not now, and not ever. 

“Zuko, what?” she prompted.  _ She’s nothing if not persistent _ , Zuko thought. 

“I thought things would be different!” he said. “I thought after the war, maybe we’d have a chance. Maybe not for forever, but at least for a bit. You helped me take down Azula, you saved my life. But no. As soon as the Avatar was back, you made your decision. And you never even told me.”

“We said no feelings,” Katara retorted. “It’s not my fault that you cared about me.”

“And you never cared for me back?”

#  . . . . .

Katara froze, hoping Zuko couldn’t see the shock she felt. “You know it’s my destiny to be with Aang. There’s a reason I’m the one who found him in that iceberg.”

Zuko laughed, but it was dark and humorless. “And is there a reason you can’t have his kids?”

Without a thought, Katara stepped around the desk and slapped Zuko, hard across his scar. The sound resounded through the room. She stared at him, and looked at her own hand. When had she become so violent? 

Zuko rubbed his scar. “I’m not looking to start another war,” he muttered. “But you can’t keep making Aang’s decisions for him.”

Katara glared at him. He looked like a real Fire Lord, not the scrappy kid she had known before. He was tall, and his dark robes fell from his broad shoulders like a cascade of dark water. He would have looked imposing, but she knew him too well. 

“I did care about you,” she admitted, opening and closing her hand into a fist. She couldn’t believe she had struck him, and she knew she had to make amends before they split irrevocably like the Great Divide. “And you’re right. I didn’t give you any warning before… before choosing to be with Aang. I’m sorry.”

Zuko closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. Katara hugged him, smelling cinnamon on his robes. She rested her head on his shoulder, feeling safe and finally content. The tension inside her muscles melted like ice in the sun. 

“This isn’t fair of me to say,” she murmured. “But I never stopped caring about you.” Her yearning for Zuko hadn’t been a conscious, noisy feeling that tugged at her attention during the long years with Aang, but a silent, watchful companion, following in her shadow so closely that she hadn’t even noticed it until now. 

“I never stopped caring about you either,” he admitted. 

Katara looked up, and suddenly his lips were on hers, hot as a firepepper. She reached up and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, as desperate to pull him in as a drowning woman. Guilt pressed on her, but she shook it away, remembering that Aang gave her permission to be with other men. A small voice asked,  _ What about Mai, what about Mai _ , but she pressed closer to Zuko, the electricity shooting between their bodies and lips. Zuko bent to bite her neck, and Katara gasped in the shock and pleasure of it. 

“That’s for slapping me,” he whispered. “This,” he said, pushing her onto her back on his desk, “is for not telling me that you cared about me.” He pushed her legs apart before leaning down on the desk to keep kissing her. She wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him closer as she kissed him back, tangling her hands in his dark hair, feeling his headpiece fall out of his hair and onto the desk next to her. 

* * *

AN: Don’t worry, Chapter 16 will start with a continuation of this scene. What’s great about fanfiction for amateur writers like me is that 1) we get lots of helpful feedback, and 2) I can explain what I’m trying to do in the footnotes (and you can tell me if it’s working or not!). So in this chapter, I wanted it to seem like Katara’s best quality, her selflessness, has turned into her worst quality, and eventually pushed her over the edge. Did it seem in-character? What worked, and what didn’t? Also, have you registered to vote? : )


	16. Chapter 16

# Part 2: Chapter 16

AN: For the past few days I’ve been dealing with a bout of depression, which manifested in this chapter. We’ll get back to sunny days soon, but sometimes we have to slough through the grayness before we get there. 

“Now that I leave you, I shall be made lonely

By simple empty days, never that chill

Resonant heart to strike between my arms

Again, as though distraught for distance,­–only

Levels of evening, now, behind a hill,

Or a late cock-crow from the darkening farms.”

_-Louise Bogan, excerpt from “Fifteenth Farewell”_

* * *

As Zuko’s headpiece fell onto the desk beside her, Katara fumbled with the strings of Zuko’s robes, feeling as desperate as she had when they had been teenagers. The five-year regret pulsed through her veins as she kissed him, trying to make up for everything she had let go. 

“Zuko!” she gasped as she felt his erection against her. 

“Katara, can we…?” 

Without a word, she pulled her dress away from her legs, grabbed his cock, and guided it to her. They both gasped at the contact, the past five years disappearing like smoke. Their bodies remembered their age-old dance, and Zuko pressed in, eager to touch her more. He kissed her neck, and Katara reached down to rub the small button that sent shocks of pleasure through her body. As Zuko’s body found a rhythm against hers, Katara thought about how bodies respond to repetition. Back and forth, a pattern, a consistency of movement. Healing a body with waterbending was similar. To heal a broken bone, you needed a consistent, repetitive motion until the bone mended itself under the water. Maybe it was the same with a broken heart. 

Katara was jerked back to the moment when Zuko bit her neck as his strokes slowed. 

“Katara, I can’t last.”

In response, she only pulled him tighter and kissed his scarred cheek. “I want this,” she whispered. 

With a groan, Zuko’s movements became erratic, losing the rhythm as he sped up. Katara rubbed herself faster, feeling her body crest a mountain just as Zuko groaned again. Katara crashed down, her orgasm flooding her, as she felt Zuko climax as well. His shoulders and back relaxed, and he dropped the weight of his chest onto her. Despite his recent orgasm, he continued to push in and out slowly, almost luxuriously. Katara felt her breathing slow as her intimate muscles continued to contract. Zuko slowly pulled away from her, and without a word, he tied his hair back, picked up the royal headpiece, and fixed it back into his bun. 

Katara lifted herself onto her elbow, smoothed her underclothes and dress, and slid off the desk. Her legs felt like jelly, and she placed a hand onto the desk to steady herself. 

“Zuko, I--”

He held up a hand. “This was a mistake. Please don’t ever mention this again.”

Katara nodded curtly and stepped around the desk to the door. Her cheeks burned with shame, but she held her chin high, feeling, for the first time in months, like she had seized control of her life.

# . . . . .

For hours, Zuko paced around his study, feeling disgusted with himself. He had spent the last ten years of his life trying to find his honor, and he had thrown it away for the sake of a small moment of pleasure. The sun sank below the horizon, but Zuko didn’t move to light a candle. 

“Stupid, stupid…” he muttered to himself as he paced in the dark. He knew he had to tell Mai. He clenched and unclenched his hands, trying to find a way to release the energy pulsing through his veins. Images of Katara’s curves, Katara’s lips, Katara’s hair flowed into his mind, and he shook his head to clear them away. He realized with a start that Katara had been the first woman he’d touched in months. Mai had rebuked him for a while, saying she was too busy or uninterested in lying with him, and the days and weeks and months had passed without any change. Zuko hadn’t realized how much he had craved contact with another person. But that wasn’t an excuse. 

He pulled a rope by his desk, and a few minutes later, a servant knocked on the door. 

“Fetch Sho-ren Mai,” he ordered. “Tell her it’s very important that I speak to her.”

“Certainly, Sire. Shall I also bring a candle?” 

Zuko nodded curtly and sat behind his desk. When the servant left, he stood again and began pacing again. After a few minutes, the door opened, and Mai shut it behind her. 

“What is it, Zuko? I was entertaining a group of Earth Nation dignitaries. What could possibly be so important?”

“Mai.” Zuko strode across the room and took her hands in his. “I have to tell you something. I’m not proud of this. I… I laid with someone else.”

Mai gazed at him with a critical glint in her eye. “Is that it?”

“What?” Zuko shook his head in confusion. “Yes, but… Mai, I cheated on you.”

She pulled her hands from his. “For how long has this been going on?”

“Just once. Tonight.”

She laughed humorlessly. With no small amount of bitterness, she said, “Zuko, this is hardly earth-shattering news. All Fire Lords have had mistresses. I’m just surprised it’s taken you this long to find a maiden for this purpose.”

“You’re not… upset?”

“Why should I be? I expected this before we got engaged.” Mai brushed her hands down her robes to straighten them. 

“Do you… still want to marry me?” Zuko asked. “Even though I’ve behaved dishonorably?”

Mai waved a hand dismissively. “Like I said. All Fire Lords have had mistresses. It was no secret that your father regularly visited high-born maidens for that purpose. Usually second daughters, those that did not have good marriage prospects. You most likely have several half-brothers and sisters spread around the Fire Nation, although any smart woman would take care to prevent such things. Bastards of any Fire Lord tend to have short life spans.”

Zuko’s stomach roiled, and he felt like he might be sick. “Did my mother know?”

Mai rolled her eyes. “Yes, Zuko, I’m sure she did. Fire Lady Ursa was no fool. I’m sure his affairs relieved her, in a way. Every night he spent out of her chambers was a night she didn’t have to pretend he didn’t repulse her. ”

Zuko clenched his fists, as though he could punish Ozai across the grave. “Mai, I don’t want to be a man like my father. This was a one-time mistake. I’m committed to you, and I don’t ever want to cause you more pain or repulse you.”

Mai sighed and turned to go. “Truly, Zuko, it’s not my business what you do in your spare time. We’ll have enough children that you won’t need to start a harem for conceiving heirs like the Avatar did. Chase all the skirts you want, if it’s only pleasure you seek.”

Before Zuko could respond, Mai left his study, quietly shutting the door behind her. His head swam like he had consumed a barrel of rice wine. He leaned on the wall for support, trying to piece together everything Mai had said. His father, his mother. Had Azula known? Had she cared? Feeling his legs weaken, he let his body slide down the wall until he sat on the floor, his head cradled on his knees.

“Mom, I wish I could ask you what to do,” he whispered. A tear slid down his scarred cheek.

# . . . . .

Katara slid the door shut behind her softly. The chamber she and Aang were sharing was dark, and she tread quietly so she wouldn’t wake Aang. As she began to undress for bed, a candle beside her snapped to life. 

“Where have you been?” Aang asked. Katara turned, and saw her partner sitting on top of the bed covers. Seeing him sitting cross-legged, waiting for her, with a skeptical angle to his brow, Katara felt her shoulders tense and her hands curl into fists. 

“None of your business, Aang,” she said. 

He sighed. “Fine, you don’t have to tell me. I was just worried about you. You stormed off without saying anything. Are you still upset with me?”

“Depends. Have you decided to do the right thing?” Katara watched his jaw clench, and she knew her words had struck him like a dagger. 

“Katara! We’re not doing this again.” Aang’s tone was final, and Katara gritted her teeth. She turned, reaching back for the door, but Aang’s hand landed on her shoulder. “Wait.” He looked her up and down, and she suddenly was conscious of her rumpled clothes, flushed cheeks, and tousled hair. “Did you… lie with someone?”

“Yes. You gave me permission, remember?”

Aang dropped his hand and took a step back. “Who?”

“It’s not important.”

“Not important? We’ve never had secrets from each other.”

Katara’s anger deflated, knowing the truth would crush him in a landslide. She took a deep breath, and steeled herself to bring his fantasy of her crashing down. “Aang, I love you. But today made me realize that you’re right-- I’ve felt broken for years now. I can’t give you what you need, what the world needs. Spirits know why. But I’ve thought that, maybe, if I can support you in everything else, maybe that’s what my destiny is. Because we both know you can’t be the last airbender. And the White Lotus’ crazy plan, well, it helped for a while. I didn’t feel the pressure of having a child. But Aang, I’ve been blindly following you for years. When’s the last choice I made for myself without thinking of how it will affect you, affect us?” She paused to catch her breath. The words had poured out of her like a burst dam. 

“I don’t know,” Aang admitted. “I thought this was what you wanted.”

“I thought so too. Now I’m not so sure.”

“So what-- you found another wedding guest or someone to figure out if you still want to be with me?”

“No, I--” Katara sighed. “It was someone I had been with before. Before you and I were together.”

Aang looked confused for a moment, but then his gray eyes grew wide. “Zuko?”

Katara looked away and nodded. “Back on Ember Island. I was afraid we wouldn’t survive the end of the war, and I, well, wanted to experience things. Zuko was there. He was convenient.” She bit the inside of her cheek, hating how callous it sounded. 

“And what, now he’s just convenient again? To get back at me for making my own choices?”

Katara’s eyes snapped up to meet his. “I cared about him, back then. I wasn’t ready to admit it to him, or to myself. But I am now. I can’t keep going like we have, Aang. I can’t keep following you. I’m losing myself.”

Aang took her hand in his. “Let me help you find yourself again,” he said. 

Katara pulled away, and said, “Don’t you get it? I can’t do that with you. I’m sorry, Aang. I thought this was meant to be, but I was wrong.” She walked to a wardrobe and pulled her leather pack from the bottom. She hadn’t had time to unpack it yet, which was just as well now. “I need some time to clear my head.” She kissed him on the cheek before leaving the room, feeling, for the first time in years, with a sense of peace. 

#  . . . . .

Zuko held Mai’s hands as the High Fire Sage tied a strip of white fabric around their wrists. Normally, the fabric would have been embroidered by both of their mothers before the wedding, but this strip only had embroidery from Mai’s mother. 

“As this cord binds your hands, so shall your love bind your souls,” the High Sage announced. Kneeling on the high dais with Mai, Zuko fought the urge to look over the crowd. Instead, he stared intently at the white fabric until Mai quietly cleared her throat. He looked up to see her eyes full of annoyance above a smile that could have been painted on. 

She looked beautiful. Her hair had been tied in small braids pulled back from her face, exposing her long, white neck above her deep red robes. Twin gemstones glistened on her earlobes like specks of blood. Her robes were tied with a wide belt, accentuating her thin waist. Zuko looked at his new wife and felt nothing but guilt. 

“Please rise,” the High Sage instructed as he gently pulled their bound hands up. Zuko and Mai got up from their kneeling position, and, as they had rehearsed for months, leaned over their joined hands for a quick, chaste kiss. “In the spirit of the Holy Fire, I now present the Fire Lord Zuko and Fire Lady Mai.”

The audience gathered in the palace's courtyard began applauding and cheering, and as he and Mai pivoted to face the crowd, Zuko forced a smile. He scanned the faces in the front rows, but he couldn’t pick out Katara or Aang. 

As per tradition, Zuko and Mai began to unwind their hands from the fabric binding them. Superstition stated that the fabric must remain in one piece if the marriage was to survive. Zuko and Mai had practiced with strips of fabric for weeks to perfect the technique of bending the wrists to slip the hands out. Now, though, with everyone watching him, Zuko felt his hands shake. The fabric was tightly wrapped around them, and Zuko pulled harder, trying to release his hands. After a second of tugging, Zuko heard a rip, and suddenly his hands were free. He stared down at the strip of fabric on the floor before looking up to see Mai glaring at him. 

The High Sage quickly stepped in and gathered up the ripped fabric. “We’ll get someone to mend this. Legends say that bad luck only sets in if the hand bindings aren’t fixed by midnight.”

Mai grabbed Zuko’s hand and led him down the center aisle of the courtyard, where their guests threw grains of rice and well wishes over their heads. Zuko looked around furtively, again trying to spot his friends—  _ were they still his friends? _ — in the crowd. Mai tugged him along, and the rest of the evening flew by as only wedding days can do. He was congratulated by Sokka and Suki, by Toph, and by a morose Aang, but Katara either avoided him or avoided the wedding itself. 

After hours of dining and music and toasts under a pavilion outside the palace, Zuko felt exhaustion deep in his bones. His cheeks hurt from forcing himself to smile all evening, and during one particularly boisterous traditional Earth Kingdom dance, Zuko snuck out. He wandered through the palace until his feet brought him to his mother’s old garden. The music from his wedding was faint, and he walked to the turtle-duck pond to dip his feet into the water. They were sore and swollen from so much standing in his uncomfortable dress shoes, and the cool water was soothing. A dove cooed nearby, and for a moment, Zuko could feel his tension melt away. 

“Hey, Sparky.”

Zuko turned his head at the voice. Toph stood behind him, her arms folded over her green dress, bare toes sticking out from under the hem. 

“Why aren’t you at the reception?” Zuko asked. 

“Why aren’t you?” she replied with a grin. “Probably for the same reason— crowds exhaust me.”

“Yeah.” 

Toph sat next to him, her legs crossed before her. “Something’s on your mind,” she said. 

Zuko knew better than to argue. “Just being married, I guess. Feels new and a little scary.”

“No, that’s not it.” She tapped her chin. “I can tell when people aren’t telling the whole truth.”

“Toph, where’s Katara?”

She grinned. “That’s what’s bothering you. I don’t know. No one’s seen the sugar queen all day. Or yesterday, come to think of it. But she’s not here, anyway. Not in the palace, at least.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve spent enough time with her to know how she walks, how she feels standing on the ground. I haven’t felt her recently.”

“Maybe Aang would know.”

Toph shook her head. “They had a fight. I think he found out about you guys.”

Zuko’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”

Toph bumped his shoulder with hers. “You know, all those years ago. You guys sneaking around.”

“Oh.” Zuko relaxed a little. Toph didn’t know about what had happened in his study two nights ago. “I hope she and Aang work it out,” he said lamely. 

Toph laughed. “Sparky, you have got to quit lying!”

#  . . . . .

Katara swung her pack over her shoulder. After sneaking into the royal kitchen and loading her pack with dried jerky, cheese, and hard bread, she walked to the edge of the city where the harbor met the sea. She remembered, years ago, what had happened during the day of Black Sun. Aang had kissed her for the second time, before taking off on his glider. She hadn’t expected to live through the day, although she had put on a brave face for Aang. And now, she was leaving him at the same place. 

Among all the metal battleships and yachts, Katara found a small wooden rowboat that looked as weatherbeaten as her heart. Pushing it onto the water, she tested it to see if it was still sturdy enough to float. When she was satisfied, she threw her pack in, climbed in, and began bending the water to push the rowboat through the water. It would be tough to stay afloat on rough waves, but if she stuck to the coast, it would hold her. She bended the water and steered the boat out of the harbor and toward the rising sun. 

END OF PART TWO

* * *

AN: Thank you for all the comments! I couldn’t have summoned the willpower to keep writing without all of you! See you soon for the start of Part 3!


	17. Chapter 17

# Part 3: Chapter 17

**IMPORTANT UPDATE NOV 9 2020: Dear friends, I am updating this chapter to announce I will be taking a brief hiatus from writing this story until mid-December 2020. I am a student, and unfortunately right now I have other priorities, but I'm excited to start writing again soon! Stay safe, and happy reading!**

"Out of the fog 

the voice of the clairvoyant speaks 

with the precision of a bird: 

_You have a few years left._

_You will end in hope._

The listener in the fog is startled. 

_I never asked a question._

_Why this answer?_

His words hang in the air, unanswered, 

then drift away, slow feathers." 

_-Sandra M. Gilbert, "The Fog Dream"_

* * *

_Dear Zuko. We’re back in the Earth Kingdom, finally. Our peace missions have gone back to their, let’s say, original purpose: actually spreading the message of peace and unity, instead of, well, sowing airbender oats. Aang still seems depressed, but that’s probably because Katara still hasn’t come back. No one knows where she went, not even Sokka. Probably back to the Southern Water Tribe, but we’re not scheduled to visit there for a while. Personally, I think it’s good. Whatever went on between them, she probably needs some time to cool off. I’m sure she’ll meet back up with us once she’s ready. It was nice to see you at your wedding. I hope married life is treating you well. We’re definitely seeing less rogue Fire Nationals on our trip, so whatever you’re doing as Fire Lord, keep it up. Hopefully we’ll get to see you soon. Okay, how should we end the letter? (Sorry, I thought she was still talking to you.) Your friend(s), Toph (and Suki)_

# . . . . .

_Dear Zuko. Did you get our last letter? We just left Gaoling, and we’re on the road to Ba Sing Se. Send your next letter to Omashu, and we’ll get it when we get there. Things have been going well for us. Katara isn’t back yet, but that’s okay. Sokka has amassed a following of warriors-in-training. It seems like every village we go to, he’s the one all the kids want to meet, especially the non-bender kids. He’s eating it up, of course. He gives little demonstrations and holds “warrior workshops” where he teaches the kids some fighting moves. You’d never guess how many of these kids have boomerangs. Anyway, hope you’re doing okay. Your friends, Toph (and Suki)_

# . . . . .

_Dear Zuko. Suki is writing this letter for me in early Octobumn. Have you gotten any of my letters? Katara still isn’t back, but at least Aang is seeming more upbeat. He’s enjoying helping people, especially towns and villages who have problems with the spirits. People are always doing things to rile up the spirits, huh? Oh! You’ll never guess what we saw last week! A wild dragon! It was small, but it landed near the village we were visiting. That’s how I saw it, anyway. Obviously I didn’t care when it was flying. (Suki here- it was amazing! Green and red scales that almost glowed!) We’re heading up to the Northern Water Tribe. Hopefully Katara is there, playing around in the snow or whatever. Sokka talks about her constantly, but you can tell Aang gets uncomfortable when Sokka brings her up. I hope she and Aang figure this all out. Anyway. Write to us. We miss you. Not me. (She does.) Your friends, Toph (and Suki)_

# . . . . .

_Dear Zuko. If I did something to upset you, just tell me. This silence is unfair. I know you’re not too busy to sit down and write a freaking letter. We see newspapers about you meeting with dignitaries from all over the world, so I know you’re not dead or anything. Katara wasn’t at the Northern Water Tribe, and now Aang and Sokka are fighting about it. Sokka wants to go look for her. It’s been five months since we heard from her, and he’s convinced she’s in trouble. Aang wants to give her space. If you know where she is, just write. It’d give Sokka some peace of mind, and it’d give me a break from hearing him and Aang argue all the freaking time. -Toph (and Suki)_

# . . . . .

_Dear Zuko. It’s just Suki this time. Toph left the group a few weeks after we sent the last letter. I think she’s headed back to Gaoling, but I’m not sure. Sokka and I are on the way back to Kyoshi Island. I don’t know what Aang’s plan is. Sokka is going crazy not knowing what’s going on with Katara. It kills me to say this, but I’ve been keeping a secret from him. Katara and I send letters fairly regularly. She’s settled down outside a village, and she’s doing well. I think she’s gained a reputation as a “friendly witch,” because the villagers don’t seem to know waterbending can be used to heal. If I told Sokka I know she’s okay, he’ll want to go see her, and I think she wants to be alone for now. She’s been taking care of people her whole life, and maybe this is her chance to finally figure out who she wants to be. Of course I’ll have to tell him eventually, but I hope she comes to us first so I can avoid that conversation for as long as possible. Write back. Your friend, Suki_

# . . . . .

_Dear Zuko._

# . . . . .

_Dear Zuko._

# . . . . .

_Dear Zuko._

# . . . . .

Flipping through the stack of letters Suki had sent him, Zuko felt the weight of guilt as heavy as the royal headpiece. He sat in his study, fingering the smooth pages. How could he write back now, after months of ignoring the letters that flew in by hawk. Every day that passed with no reply, a brick was placed on a wall that grew between him and his old friends. 

Someone rapped on the door, and Zuko called, “Come in.”

His head attendant Ming entered the study. 

“Your Highness, Fire Lady Mai has returned from her trip.”

“Thank you, where might I find her?” Zuko asked as he stood up. 

“Her royal chambers, Sire.”

Zuko nodded to dismiss her, and quickly organized the letters before placing them in a drawer. He straightened the royal headpiece and dusted off his robes before walking through the palace to Mai’s suite. 

He stopped outside the door, wondering if he should knock. Would it be expected for him to walk in unannounced? Would it be a sign of weakness as Fire Lord to wait for permission to enter his wife’s chambers? As he contemplated, the door swung open. 

“Oh, Zuko. I was just about to go for a walk in the garden. Join me?”

Mai was dressed in a red silk robe, her hair pulled into a simple but elegant bun with two locks framing her face on either side. She was as beautiful as the day he had married her, but a sense of self-preservation kept him from touching her, like she was a hot stove. 

“Yes, that would be lovely,” he said, noticing the formality in his voice. They walked together to his mother’s garden, where the first hint of spring showed in the buds of the maple tree. 

“How was your trip?” Zuko asked. 

Mai yawned. “Oh, you know how these trips are. Boring, but refreshing.” 

She had been gone for over two weeks at a lady’s spa at Fire Fountain City, meditating while shoring up alliances with the female elites. Many Fire Nation representatives or the wives of representatives took vacations at the hot water springs spa, and dignitaries from the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes were beginning to visit the Fire Fountain City as well. Mai’s vacation was just as much a political tactic as it was a retreat. 

“Did you see anyone we know from before the end of the war?” Zuko asked. 

Mai looked puzzled for a moment, but said, “No, just the usual.” 

“Anyone in particular seem promising for the trade relations position I need to fill?” 

Mai yawned, but it seemed exaggerated. “No, not in that bunch.”

“Well, was there anyone you enjoyed talking to at least?”

Mai turned to face him. “No, it was just a boring trip, okay? No one interesting. No one who might advance your righteous quest to heal the relationship between all three nations.”

Zuko was taken aback. “What’s going on?” he asked. 

“Nothing. I’m just tired.”

Zuko wanted to press her, to know why she had seemed so condemnatory of peace between the three nations. Instead, after seeing the angry glint in her eye, he nodded. It was usually best to give her space when she was in one of these moods. 

Zuko looked up and saw a hawk circling the sky above the palace. It was too far to see if it carried a message, and he wondered if it had another letter from Suki. 

“I did hear something interesting,” Mai said after a minute. “The Glass Triangle.”

“I thought the royal advisors said it had been dissolved?”

“That’s not what the wives of governors of the outlying islands and old colonies said. Sounds like the rebels have just moved their organization more… underground.”

Zuko sighed. He had thought the Glass Triangle was behind him. 

“There’s more,” Mai continued. “There’s rumors of their new leader— a woman in a mask.”

* * *

AN: Short chapter, but I’d love to hear your thoughts! 


	18. Chapter 18

#  Part 3: Chapter 18

“I do not love you now, 

Nor do you love me, 

Love like a splendid storm 

Swept us and passed. 

Yet while the distance 

And days drift between us, 

Little things linger 

To make me remember, 

As the rain's fragrance 

Clings when the rain goes 

To the wet under leaves 

Of the verbena, 

As the clear rain-drops 

Cling to the cobwebs, 

Leaving them lightly 

Threaded with stars.”

_ -Sara Teasdale, “Afterwards” _

* * *

Zuko leaned forward on his seat on the high dias, listening to his advisors closely. They all seemed to be in agreement for once: the Glass Triangle had appeared to disband, but had actually grown their organization in more subtle ways. And one thing was clear: the group had a leader. 

“She’s known as the Glass Priestess, our sources say,” one of the advisors said. She fumbled with papers as she spoke. 

“Yes, the Glass Priestess,” another said. “We haven’t found any information about her— not her Nation or her name or even if she’s a bender. It seems as if she’s just… appeared out of thin air.”

“Well she obviously didn’t,” Zuko snapped. “What does she want?”

“Our intelligence agents who have seen her say she preaches the old doctrine of the Glass Triangle.” The advisor visibly gulped. “That you are unfit as Fire Lord and that you should be replaced by someone who was not loyal to your father.”

Zuko wanted to slump in his seat. “And is this priestess suggesting that the Avatar should take my place?”

“Yes, Sire.”

Zuko wished his uncle was with him, but he had returned to Omashu. After rubbing his temples for a moment, Zuko felt the outline of the scar on his face. The scar, his constant companion for eleven years, should have been enough to remind the world that he had never had his father’s approval.

#  . . . . .

Three days later, Zuko sat at his desk in his study. His trade negotiations were beginning to dissolve, as ex-Fire Nation pirates raided Earth Kingdom merchant ships. After several years of peace, the shadow of the old war had come to haunt him. 

As Zuko studied maps of the pirate attacks, looking for patterns, someone knocked on his door. 

“I’m busy,” Zuko called out. He couldn’t handle news of another pirate attack this morning. 

“Sire, it’s quite urgent,” a voice said through the door. 

Zuko sighed and said, “Enter.”

One of his royal aides opened the door. “There’s been an attack,” the young man said. 

Zuko interrupted. “Which sea, the Mo Ce Sea or Eastern sea?”

His aide looked confused. “Sire?”

Zuko pointed at his maps in frustration. “The pirates, where were they during the attack?”

“Fire Lord, this wasn’t pirates.”

#  . . . . .

Zuko marched into the great hall, glaring at his advisors. One visibly gulped when he saw the scowl on Zuko’s face. When Zuko reached the high dias, he swept his robes behind him and sat on the zabuton. All eyes were on him. 

“Give me the full report,” he announced. 

“It was a village on Hing Wa Island, Fire Lord,” a woman said. Her gray hair was pulled into a high bun and held back with a red headband. “The fire started just after midnight last night.”

“And it appears as though the fire was started in several locations at once,” a young, nervous looking man said. His spectacles rode low on his nose as he shuffled his notes. “Multiple houses went up in flames at the same time. That’s why fire marshalls were unable to control the blaze.”

“How many injured?” Zuko interrupted. 

“Several dozen sustained burns, and at least three citizens have died,” an older man said. 

Zuko dropped his head into his hands. A small voice in his head whispered,  _ This was your fault, Fire Lord. Their blood is on your hands _ . “Have all the villagers been evacuated now?” Zuko asked. 

“Yes, Sire. And the fires have been put out,” the young, nervous advisor said. 

“That’s a relief. Anything else to report?”

Silence stretched through the room. Zuko stared at each advisor in turn, but none of them would meet his eyes. As his pulse quickened, Zuko turned to the oldest one. 

“Chang, tell me what’s going on.”

The wizened man sighed and stroked his sparse beard. “Fire Lord, this town has had very vocal members of the Glass Triangle. There are rumors that, well…” 

Zuko leaned forward. “What?”

“There are rumors that you ordered the blaze.”

#  . . . . .

Zuko paced through the gardens, the grass beneath his feet slightly singed. His body felt too hot, too tight to control the molten anger in his core. Mai sat on a stone bench, watching him. The sun was just beginning to set, casting the clouds in a pinkish orange. 

“I didn’t do this, Mai,” he ranted as he paced. “I would never take out my anger at the Glass Triangle on my own citizens!”

“I know,” she replied. 

“It’s a ridiculous speculation. But I don’t know who did this. And I can’t go around accusing people because it’ll seem like I’m just pointing the finger to avoid blame.”

“I know,” Mai repeated. 

“I need to go visit Hing Wa Island.”

“Is that wise?” Mai asked. 

Zuko stared at her. “Yes! I’m the Fire Lord, and they’ve had a terrible tragedy that people claim I ordered! What will people say if I don’t go?”

“What will people say if you do go?” Mai countered. 

“I don’t know,” Zuko admitted. “But this feels like the right thing to do.”

Mai stretched her arms above her head and arched her back, like a cat just waking from a nap. “I think you should let this blow over. The Glass Triangle is no threat. You’re the Fire Lord, after all.”

_ Fire Lords can be overthrown _ , Zuko thought bitterly.  _ Of all people, I should know that.  _ Instead, he said, “We’re going to Hing Wa Island.”

“We?” Mai asked. Her voice dripped with disgust. 

“Yes. I think we should make an appearance as a couple. How would it look if I went but you didn’t?” Zuko sat on the stone bench next to his wife. “Plus, it feels like you’ve been gone so much recently. The trip to the Fire Fountain City, and before that Ember Island, and Crescent Island. We haven’t spent much time together lately. And Mai,” he continued, feeling blood rush to his face. “I can’t do this alone.” He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. 

“As you wish, Fire Lord.” She stood, avoiding his eyes, and swept from the garden, a scent of jasmine trailing behind her. 

Zuko sighed and watched the clouds slowly turn from orange to gray to black. As the night grew long, the clouds dispersed, and Zuko saw the faint glimmer of stars. He looked down, seeing hundreds of them reflected on the quiet surface of the turtle-duck pond. He dropped his head in his hands and realized how each star was never alone, surrounded by hundreds of its kin. One star was only a pinprick of light, but a sky full of stars could light a man’s path. He bit his lip, and stood. He knew what he needed to do.

#  . . . . .

_ Dear Suki. I want to apologize for not responding before now. I have no excuse. And I understand if it’s too late to repair our friendship. But I need to try. I’ve been a huge asshole, and I’m sorry. Recently there has been some disturbing news about the Glass Triangle that’s made me realize how isolated I really am. And I need to change that. I’m also sending letters to Aang at each of the four air temples, as well as to Toph at Gaoling, Omashu, Ba Sing Se, and any other Earth Kingdom city I can think of. It was wrong of me to abandon our friendships. I am planning a trip to a small village on Hing Wa Island. I plan to be there by late Febinter, helping rebuild, as long as it takes. If you write back, please send a hawk there. Your friend (I hope), Zuko. _

* * *

AN: Feels so good to return to this story! Thank you to all my readers who have waited so patiently for my next update! Please leave a comment on what you liked, didn’t like, and predictions on what will happen next. Happy holidays!


	19. Chapter 19

#  Part 3: Chapter 19

“I went out at night alone;

The young blood flowing beyond the sea

Seemed to have drenched my spirit’s wings—

I bore my sorrow heavily.

But when I lifted up my head

From shadows shaken on the snow,

I saw Orion in the east

Burn steadily as long ago.

(...)

Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,

The world’s heart breaks beneath its wars,

All things are changed, save in the east

The faithful beauty of the stars.”

_ -Sara Teasdale, “Winter Stars” _

* * *

Zuko waited ten days for a response from Suki, Sokka, Toph, or Aang. When none came, he resigned himself to the knowledge that his friendships were gone, washed away like footprints on a beach. Still, he had a nation to run. On the morning of the tenth day, he made a decision as he sat with Mai in her suite. He had waited long enough.

“Tell the royal seamen to load the ship, we leave for Hing Wa Island tonight,” Zuko ordered his attendants as they served them breakfast. 

“Zuko, are you sure that’s wise?” Mai asked once the attendants had bowed and left the suite. 

“We’ve talked about this. We have to make an appearance.”

“It’s not something Fire Lord Ozai would have done,” Mai said as she sipped a steaming cup of tea. 

“That’s exactly why I need to do it.”

. . . . .

By dusk, the ship had been loaded with supplies, food, and clothing. When Mai saw boxes upon boxes of clothing being loaded onto the ship, she turned to Zuko with a raised eye. 

“Donations for the villagers,” he explained. He refrained from mentioning the gold and silver pieces that had been packed in with the clothes. He and Mai boarded the ship, and the captain blew the whistle for departure just as the sun sank behind the dormant volcano of the Fire Nation Capital. Mai yawned exaggeratedly and said she was tired before heading below deck to their room. Zuko stared out at the ocean over the bow as the captain called orders to chart a course to Hing Wa Island. The moon rose in the sky, nearly full as it shone among the stars. 

. . . . .

Zuko awoke to Mai rushing from their bed. 

“Mai?” he called. The room was dark, and the porthole showed only stars. He got up to follow her, and found her retching over the dark side of the ship. Zuko rubbed her back as she vomited into the waves. 

“Damn ship,” she whispered. Zuko motioned for a seaman to bring her water and a hot towel. 

“Have you ever been seasick before?” Zuko asked. He remembered the first few weeks of his banishment as hell, from healing from his burn, to seasickness, to the torment he felt inside. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone. 

“No, never.”

“Well, there’s a first for everything,” Zuko said. When the seaman returned with the water and towel, Zuko handed them to his wife. “At least we should be there by tonight.”

“Have the captain drop me off at Ember Island. I can’t show up to a relief effort like this.” She motioned to her sweaty robes and mussed hair.

“You’ll feel better as soon as you’re on dry land again,” he assured her. 

“Zuko, I don’t want anyone making a big deal about me. This is about the villagers. Your attention should be on them.” 

Zuko opened his mouth to argue, but he saw her point. She seemed genuinely concerned for the villagers, and his love for her swelled in his chest. He kissed her cheek. 

“As you wish, Mai. I’ll tell the captain now.” He called over the seaman who had brought the towel and explained the situation. After a few moments, he felt the ship change course slightly, his body falling back into the old memory of living on a ship. Later, Mai felt steady enough to return to their bed, and Zuko helped her down the stairs as the ship pitched and rolled in the restless sea.

. . . . .

Hours later, when Mai had been delivered to Ember Island and the ship had resumed its course to Hing Wa Island, Zuko thought about the letters he had sent to Suki, Toph, and Aang. Maybe when he arrived on the island, a letter would be waiting for him. At the thought, he shook his head. Hope was an unsteady plank to clutch while drowning. Better to tread water. 

As the ship’s smokestack puffed, Zuko called for a quill and paper, and wrote a simple note to his uncle explaining what had happened. He rolled the note up and tied it to the leg of a hawk destined for Omashu. After the bird took flight, Zuko watched its black feathers meld into the gray of the ship’s smoke. 

Eventually a dark shape appeared on the darkening horizon. A sailor approached Zuko and bowed. 

“Sire, Hing Wa Island has been spotted.”

“Good. When will we make landfall?”

“Before dark, Your Highness.”

. . . . .

When the gangplank had been lowered, Zuko straightened his shoulders and stepped off the ship onto the dock. They had arrived at Szeton, a town on Hing Wa Island named for Avatar Szeto, just south of the burned village. Many of the refugees from the fire had been housed in temporary tent shelters on the outskirts of Szeton. 

As Zuko walked down the gangplank, he saw the stark contrast of the simple gray tents next to large stone buildings. Small campfires burned near the tents as well. The refugees and Szeton townspeople bowed to him as he walked. Only small children had the naive arrogance to stare at him. 

“Fire Lord Zuko, it is an honor to welcome you to our town.” A small, elderly woman kept her head bowed as she spoke.

“Thank you. Despite the most unfortunate circumstances, it is a pleasure to be here,” Zuko replied. 

The woman straightened, and, as if on cue, the rest of the Fire Nation citizens stood as well. Zuko noticed out of the corner of his eye how the refugees returned to their small campfires where iron pots hung on poles over the flames. 

“I am Sho-ren Chengu, leader of Szeton. May I get you anything before showing you to your accommodations, Your Highness? I fear it will be poor fare compared to the Capital, but please let me know what we can do to make your stay more comfortable.”

Zuko waved a hand in the air. “I’m sure it will be adequate.” He was about to ask for a light dinner to be served before he addressed the refugees with a speech he had written, but Sho-ren Chengu continued. 

“I am sure you’d like to see your companions now. Please, follow me, Your Highness.” She turned and began walking to a large stone building across the town plaza. Zuko followed, feeling a tendril of confusion. Had the elderly woman been mistaken? Who were his companions?

Sho-ren Chengu opened a large wooden door intricately carved with scenes from Fire Nation history, and Zuko followed her inside. The entryway led into a large, dimly-lit hall where a low table had been spread with a feast. Seated around the table were four figures. 

“Zuko! You made it!” A man waved a half-eaten picken leg at him. 

“Sokka?” Zuko whispered, coming closer to the table. As he got closer, he saw the faces he thought had been lost to him. “Sokka! Suki! And Toph and Aang! It’s so good to see all of you!” He swept decorum aside and hugged each of them in turn. “What are you doing here?”

“Eating dinner, obviously,” Toph deadpanned. 

“We got your letters, and we all decided to come. None of us realized the others were coming too until we got here,” Aang explained. “It’s like an impromptu reunion!”

“Sit down, Fire Lord, make yourself at home,” Sokka said, gesturing to an empty plate with the half-eaten picken leg. Zuko sat and loaded his plate with steaming vegetables and picken. His appetite returned for the first time in weeks. 

“Sokka and I were on Kyoshi Island when we got your letter, so we took a boat,” Suki added. “We’ve been helping rebuild the village during the day, but it was pretty slow going until Toph arrived.”

Toph punched her open palm with a fist. “I’m probably the first Earth Rumble Champion to turn to construction, but I always like a challenge.”

“Appa and I got here last,” Aang added. “I was at the Eastern Air Temple with Guru Patik. The newest airbenders are still too young to start training, of course, but I’ve still enjoyed showing them all my new moves.” Aang grabbed his napkin and blew it into the air before using light puffs of air to steer it around the room. Momo chattered in delight and chased it through the air. 

“Thank you all so much for coming,” Zuko said. “I didn’t think you would.”

Toph punched him in the arm. “Sparky, you can’t get rid of us that easily.”

. . . . .

Zuko stepped up to the podium to deliver his speech to the refugees and Szeton townspeople. His hands shook slightly as he smoothed the sheets of paper. Despite his five years as Fire Lord, he had never gotten used to public speaking. He looked down from the podium placed outside the town hall and saw hundreds, if not thousands, of faces looking up at him expectantly. He tried to think of how his father would sound. Royal. Confident. Charismatic. Fire Lord Ozai would have no trouble addressing a crowd this size. Zuko cleared his throat.

“Greetings, people of Hing Wa Island. I am Fire Lord Ozai— I mean, Fire Lord Zuko. I am Fire Lord Zuko.” He heard titterings in the crowd and looked down at his speech, trying to clear his head. He’d rather face a group of wolf-boars than give this speech after that mistake. “I am here on Hing Wa Island because of a tragedy. Eleven days ago, a nearby village was set ablaze by arsonists. Several good Fire Nation citizens lost their lives, and hundreds more lost their homes. But the spirit of our people is not so easily destroyed.” Zuko looked up and saw his friends standing in the front row. An idea sparked, and he folded his hands over his speech. “Here with me today are war heroes, Sokka from the Southern Water Tribe, Suki from the Earth Kingdom, Master Toph from the Earth Kingdom, and Avatar Aang. Together, we will restore peace to the island, and balance to the world.”

A feeble cheer went up from the crowd. Zuko felt his shoulders slump slightly in disappointment. He had hoped for a better response. It seemed his unpopularity as Fire Lord had spread to Hing Wa Island as well. 

In an instant, Aang had propelled himself onto the steps of the town hall next to Zuko. His face was somber, but his eyes were light. 

“Hello. I’m Avatar Aang. Everything Fire Lord Zuko has said is true. We don’t know who started the fire that destroyed the village. We don’t know what their motivations were. We do know one thing though: the Fire Nation is full of strong, capable people. If anyone can come back from this tragedy stronger than before, it’s you. Zuko and I are here for you and your families. We will help you rebuild. And then we will find those responsible for this tragedy and bring them to justice.”

The townspeople and refugees burst into cheers and applause. Aang wrapped his arm around Zuko’s shoulders, and Toph, Sokka, and Suki joined them on the steps. Zuko felt a weight lift from him as he stood with his friends beside him. Even when he failed, they were there to support him. And maybe if the world never loved him, it would love the people who loved him.

* * *

AN: Did you like this chapter? How did the ending make you feel? Did you expect the Gaang to (mostly) get back together? 


	20. Chapter 20

#  Part 3: Chapter 20

“Be still, I am content,

Take back your poor compassion—

Joy was a flame in me

Too steady to destroy.

Lithe as a bending reed

Loving the storm that sways her—

I found more joy in sorrow

Than you could find in joy.”

_ -Sara Teasdale, excerpt from “The Answer” _

* * *

Dust settled itself onto Zuko’s clothes as thick as a snake’s skin. The walk from Szeton to the remains of the village was over five miles of dirt road cutting between fields of flax and melonyam. He had refused both a palanquin and a wagon, saying to Sho-ren Chengu that all able-bodied men and women available, including his own attendants and seamen, should be helping the rebuilding effort, and all wagons should be carrying supplies. As he coughed from the dust, he wished he had taken Aang up on the ride to the site on Appa. The villagers and healthy refugees walking to the site were covered in gray dirt from the road as well. 

“Ever built a house before?” Toph asked, falling into step beside him. 

“No, I’ve only ever set up tents,” he admitted. 

“Guess no one thought that’d be part of the Fire Lord’s job description, huh?” Toph laughed. “Well the basic premise is easy. One wall bears the load of the house. I’ve been building the load-bearing walls, while these schmucks,” she gestured to the group walking ahead of them, “take care of the other three walls and the roof with wood planks and shingles.”

“What happens if all four walls are stone?” Zuko asked. 

“I tried that, actually. When we get there, you’ll see some rubble that wasn’t part of the initial village. I bended four walls and a roof out of stone. Genius, right? A house that will be sturdy enough to last generations. That night though, we had a windstorm. Thank spirits no one had moved in, because the next morning the wind plus the weight of the roof had brought all four walls down.”

“The wind was that strong, huh?” Zuko shook his leg to dislodge a pebble that had worked its way into his boot. 

“That’s the thing. The windstorm wasn’t as bad as any other night on these spirit-forsaken tropical islands— no offense. But the house was too solid. There was no give to it, and eventually it cracked under the pressure.”

“But wood houses stay up?” Zuko asked skeptically. 

“The villagers had built a few houses the same day I had. One wall of mud bricks, three walls of wood planks with spaces at the top. Wood shingled roof. The next morning, all four walls were still standing. Only a few shingles were missing.”

Zuko was quiet as they continued their walk, thinking about what Toph had said. 

“If I was your uncle, I’d probably have some moral or life lesson about how we can’t be strong all the time, and we need to lean on our friends to face the storm, or something dumb like that,” she said. “Good thing I’m not a philosopher!” she added before punching his arm.

#  . . . . .

Zuko helped the builders cut down trees from a nearby forest, slice the trunks into rough planks, and hammer the planks in place to a simple frame. The work was hard, but as sweat dripped down his brow, Zuko realized how much he had missed physical labor. While he continued his firebending training every day, his muscles had gone soft from his years sitting on a zabuton. 

Sokka seemed to relish the work as well. He had taken over as foreman, telling Toph where to bend the load-bearing walls and ordering the builders to redo any construction he found shoddy. He instructed Aang and Appa to carry logs from the forest to the buildsite, while putting Suki in charge of organizing the town layout. He also had no qualms ordering Zuko around either, but Zuko didn’t mind. 

The Szenton townspeople and refugees worked well together, despite the clear difference in the quality of their clothing and accents. The Szentons had lilting accents, born from education from one of the nation’s funded schools. The village, meanwhile, had been too small for a Fire Nation school, their gruff accents proof. Zuko watched the young, strong, well-dressed townspeople hammer planks as older, injured refugees held them in place, and he remembered what his advisors had said, that the village had been full of Glass Triangle activity. As he watched them work, he wondered which ones had plotted to overthrow him. The young man who handed nails to his father as he hammered shingles onto roofs? The pregnant woman who lifted ladles of water to workers’ lips? The burly man who carried an entire log from the forest to the buildsite? The elderly woman in a dark robe who bent to whisper into perked ears?

Zuko shook his head. He couldn’t think like this. He couldn’t look at his subjects as the enemy. He put his head down and continued to work, heaving logs to Appa with the help of other men, sawing the logs into planks back at the buildsite, accepting water from the pregnant villager, her wide hat covering her face from view. 

As the sun began to set, Sokka whistled with two fingers in his mouth. 

“Work’s done for the day! Everyone pack up and head back to Szenton. Aang, carry the old people back on Appa.”

Zuko rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder, trying to work out the kinks in his neck. 

“Harder than you expected?” Suki teased as she approached with a load of shingles. Zuko could only nod in exhaustion. “You’ll get used to it,” she added. “I think with the extra help you brought, we should have the village rebuilt completely in the next week.”

“A week?” Sokka gasped. “Not if I can help it! Five days, max!”

“We’ve only made a hundred or so houses,” Toph said. “And that’s not even counting any bigger buildings these people will need.”

“I have faith in us, Sokka!” Aang called from his perch on Appa’s head. “Appa, let’s get these villagers back. Yip yip!” 

Zuko watched the bison take off in the direction of Szenton, wishing he had Aang’s optimism. He wondered how Mai was doing on Ember Island, but Sokka broke into his thoughts by putting a sweaty arm around his shoulder. 

“Well, Fire Lord, how do you like the work of us lowly peasants?” he asked as they began the trek back to Szenton. 

“I have to admit, it’s nice to work with my hands again,” Zuko confessed. “I haven’t had to do that since I was running around with you all before the end of the war.”

“I miss those days,” Toph complained. 

“What, the days of fearing for our lives and trying to prevent the end of the world?” Suki asked. 

“Yeah! That was the life,” Toph replied. They all laughed, and Zuko felt a sense of contentment wash over him. He wouldn’t take moments like this for granted anymore.

#  . . . . .

Five days on the buildsite passed quickly, but Sokka kept them all on schedule, and as the sun set on the fifth day, Zuko saw a real village in front of him. Every family had a two or three room house, and the village had a central building that doubled as a meeting hall and school. An open-air market was set up in front of the main building, creating a small plaza. Zuko could imagine a busy market day, where children chased each other through the stalls and got underfoot, where merchants called out their wares, and chicken-horses whinnied above the din. As he and the others walked back to Szenton when the sun dipped low, he thought about the speech he’d have to give that night to the townspeople and refugees. Something about teamwork. Or perseverance. Or hope. Or all of that. He wished he had taken up the tradition some other Fire Lords had, of employing a look-alike to perform the more ceremonial or public aspects of being Fire Lord, leaving the actual running of the nation to the real Fire Lord. Although Zuko suspected that many of those Fire Lords, his forefathers’ forefathers, had instead used the opportunity to live decadent lifestyles that eventually led to Sozin’s fervor for change. No, Zuko would be the difference that was needed in his bloodline. 

Throughout the evening, he brooded on the speech. After his disaster earlier in the week, he wanted to come off as genuine, not the kind of monarch who gave generic, stilted speeches. He had worked on the ground with his citizens. He had proven himself to them. All he had to do was say it. 

After the evening meal, shared among townspeople and refugees, firebenders lit lanterns around the Szenton town square. Zuko trudged up the steps to the dias. He had ordered the removal of the podium, hoping it would symbolically remove the wall between himself and his subjects. He stood on the dias and faced the crowd, still dressed in his dusty work clothes. Another tactic to remind them that he had toiled beside them. 

“Good evening, people of Hing Wa Island. I wanted to let you all know of the progress we have made on the rebuilding of the village. Thanks to your strong men and women, we have built over two hundred houses, a new market, and a town hall. With the donations that have poured in from around the nation, you and your children will be clothed and fed. This tragedy that claimed several lives will live in infamy, but the strength of your people will not be forgotten.” Zuko looked over the crowd. Some faces seemed bright, interested, but far more were contorted into scowls. Zuko’s hands began to shake and he put them behind his back. 

“Tomorrow we’d like to hold a celebration for everyone at the new village. After much deliberation, I’m pleased to announce the new village, which was previously unnamed, will be called Phoenix, because the village has been reborn from its ashes.”

“Hypocrite!” someone shouted from the crowd. “Liar Lord!”

Something flashed through the air toward him, and Zuko took a step back before a searing pain shot through his shoulder. He fell to the floor of the dias, an arrow jutting from his shoulder, pinning layers of clothing to him as blood seeped onto his robes. Amid the din of yells and screams, he heard a familiar voice shout his name. 


	21. Chapter 21

#  Part 3: Chapter 21

AN: If you have ever left me a review or comment, please know you’ve helped write this story. I thrive on external validation, so every “good job” or “I love this story” has helped me push through when it felt like too much work or that I was just throwing chapters into the wind. I really cannot thank you enough for supporting me. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

“TIME sweeps through me like a wind;

Space engulfs me like a sea.

Time and Space are at me always—

They will not let me be.

I am weary, weary with years,

Troubled by immensity.

With eternities around me,

How can I be free?”

_ -Marjorie Meeker, “Comrades” _

* * *

Zuko hit the dias hard, the pain in his shoulder excruciating. 

_ How could one arrow hurt so much, _ he wondered before trying to push himself to his feet. Around him, he heard screams of pain and clashes of metal against metal. 

“Aang!” he called. “Aang, what’s going on?”

When his voice was lost in the din of fighting, he grabbed the arrow with his right hand and yanked. He cried out from the shock of the pain, and for a moment, the world went black. When his vision came back in blurry pinpricks, he saw his men fight an invisible foe— arrows appeared from dark windows and spears jutted between bodies in the crowd. Zuko struggled to his feet, but suddenly he was supported by a woman in a dark, hooded robe. 

“Zuko, we’ve got to get you out of here,” she whispered. 

For a moment, the excruciating pain made Zuko feel delirious. “Katara?” he asked. 

“Put your good arm around my shoulder,” the woman said from under the hood. “That’s it. Keep your head down.”

She half-pushed him off the dias and into an alley. Zuko began to sit on a barrel, but she tugged him forward. “We can’t stop now, you’re not safe.”

Zuko allowed the woman to pull him toward the refugee camp on the outskirts of Szenton. She pointed to a tent set a bit apart from the others. She lifted the flap for him and he ducked inside, groaning at the pain from his shoulder. Inside, the tent was more spacious than he’d realized. A small bedroll lay in one corner, and the floor was covered with wool blankets. Bottles and jars were lined up on the top of a wooden chest. 

“What is this?” Zuko asked groggily. 

“Lie down and shut your eyes,” the woman ordered. The hood still covered her face. 

Zuko collapsed gratefully, too exhausted to wonder if he was in danger. He shut his eyes, but they flew open when the woman began unfastening the ties on his shirt. 

“What are you doing?” he asked. 

“You’re hurt, aren’t you?” she snapped. “I said shut your eyes. This is going to feel a lot worse before it feels better.”

Zuko closed his eyes again, and it was not long before the woman pulled back his blood-stained clothes. 

“You were an idiot for pulling out the arrow,” she said. 

“What?” 

“If the arrow had struck an artery, you’d have bled to death before I had gotten you here. You were lucky this time, but don’t count on that in the future.”

“Can I open my eyes now?”

“No.” 

Zuko heard the clink of glass bottles as she rummaged through the clutter on the chest. “Well, can I at least get a name?” 

“Call me Zya.”

“I’m Zuko.”

“I know who you are, Fire Lord.”

Zuko groaned as he felt a cool cloth press to his burning shoulder. The relief was too brief before a stinging sensation burst from his shoulder. 

“Ah, spirits!”

Zya pushed him back onto the bedroll. “I said it would be worse before it got better,” she said. “I believe the arrow was dipped in poison, although I’m not sure what kind yet. I need to draw it out before you can start to heal. Otherwise you’ll just get worse.”

Zya grunted a bit as she worked on his shoulder. The tent smelled sweet from the tinctures and medicines mixed with sweat. Although he still hadn’t seen her face, her voice sounded as clear as a cold mountain stream, and the confidence with which she spoke made her sound older than she likely was. He resisted the urge to open his eyes as he felt another sting pulse through his shoulder. 

“Spirits, I wish you’d just left me there to die,” he said through gritted teeth. 

“With the way you’re complaining, I’m starting to think that too.” Zya continued cleaning his shoulder with the cool cloth. “I’m going to make you a drink. You’ll start to feel sleepy. It will be easier for me to work on you if you’re not writhing around.” Zuko opened his eyes, but a cloth immediately covered them. 

“What’s all the secrecy for?” he complained. A nagging feeling in his stomach warned him of the danger he was still in, but he tried to tamp it down. 

“You may like the spotlight, Fire Lord, but not all of us do,” she replied. She helped him sit up and he felt something touch his lips. He opened his mouth and tasted a warm, sweet drink. “You’re safe here,” she said as Zuko drifted off to sleep. 

#  . . . . .

He dreamt of Katara. 

She had been so absent from his thoughts of late that seeing her face felt like returning to Ember Island every summer as a child: joy bubbling through him like water in a kettle over a fire. She didn’t seem to share his excitement though. She stood next to a waterfall, and her body was swathed in dark robes, a light veil over her face. She was trying to tell him something, but her words were lost in the roar of the waterfall. Zuko reached for her, but he slid backward from her as if he was on an icy pond. “Katara!” he yelled, but even he couldn’t hear his voice over the sound of the crashing water. 

When he jerked awake, the pain in his shoulder was reduced to a dull throb. The tent was dark, only lit by a lantern with its shade almost closed. As Zuko looked around, the tent flap lifted and the woman entered. Her hood covered her face. 

“Oh good, you’re awake. Here, I brought you porridge from the camp. How’s your shoulder?”

“It feels better,” Zuko admitted, sitting up and taking the bowl of porridge from her. He balanced it awkwardly on his lap. 

“Your friends are worried about you. No one knows where you went. I think it’s better you stay here until they find out who it is that wanted to kill you.” 

“You know, I haven’t seen your face yet,” Zuko said. “Maybe you’re the one who wanted to kill me.”

She laughed, and Zuko felt a pang of recognition hit his chest as painful and enlightening as a lightning strike. “Fire Lord, if I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”

Zuko lunged toward her, knocking his porridge to the ground. She moved to deflect him, but his hand grasped her hood and pulled it from her face. Clear blue eyes met his as she flicked her wrist. The porridge he had spilled flew up into his eyes. 

“Katara!” Zuko wiped away the porridge she had bended to blind him. When his eyes were clear, he saw she was already gone. 

#  . . . . .

Zuko winced as he pulled his robes back on. Katara had been in this village the whole time. If he moved quickly, he could catch up to her. Unfortunately, showing his face meant risking his life again. Zuko looked around for a cloak. The tent was small but maybe she had stowed away extra clothes in the chest. He knocked the glass bottles to the ground and opened the chest. Inside were packets that smelled like bitter herbs, scrolls, and envelopes. Zuko picked one up and scrutinized it. He recognized Suki’s handwriting immediately, but it was addressed to Zya Ling. Hadn’t Katara told him to call her Zya?

Zuko rummaged through the chest, but it only contained more herbs and papers. Sighing, he grabbed the blanket off the bedroll and draped it over his head. If anyone saw his scar, the gig was up. 

As he left the tent, he was thankful Katara had set it up farther from the refugee camp. It allowed him to sneak toward the forest without coming face to face with anyone. He guessed Katara would be drawn to the forest from all her time spent camping with Aang and Sokka, but he knew it was only a guess. She also could have gone straight for the sea, to disappear from his life again. 

He headed toward the woods, looking for Katara’s footprints, but the grass kept her secrets. Once he was inside the cover of the trees, his heart rate slowed, and he pulled the blanket from his head. 

“Katara?” he called. “I just want to talk.” He realized immediately this tactic would not work with her. If she wanted to speak to him, she wouldn’t have left. She wouldn’t have left months ago either. 

Instead, he took a deep breath, steeled himself against the pain in his shoulder, and looked for broken twigs, disturbed piles of leaves, anything to hint at someone’s passage. As he continued through the forest looking for signs, he wondered why he hadn’t recognized her immediately. Her voice didn’t sound quite like her. Her lithe body was so wrapped up in heavy robes that he didn’t recognize it either. In fact, she hadn’t carried herself with her usual grace. She had seemed stooped, like an old woman. The months must have been hard on her. 

Zuko continued through the forest, scanning the ground for anything that could point him in the right direction. After several long minutes, he was about ready to turn back, when he noticed a darkening among the shrubs fifty feet ahead. Picking his way over logs and through bushes, Zuko realized he had stumbled upon a simple path. It was narrow, and could have been made by deer, but he followed his intuition and took the path deeper into the forest. 

As the trees became denser and less sunlight filtered through the trees, Zuko felt a sense of foreboding and decided to follow the path from the safety of the trees. Walking parallel to the deer path, Zuko continued through the forest, holding his shoulder with his hand when it began to throb. If Katara was somewhere down this path, he’d find her. 

Suddenly, he heard voices. Zuko darted further into the trees, but continued his slow trek parallel to the path toward the sound of the voices. As he got closer, he saw a camp had been set up in the woods. Men and women with black armbands on their left arms carried boxes labeled with the Fire Nation insignia. Beneath the insignia were the characters that read “CAUTION: EXPLOSIVES.” As Zuko backed away in horror, he suddenly realized who had set the village on fire. 

* * *

AN: I can’t wait to hear what you think!!!!! So much is happening in this chapter and I’m so excited to what you think is going to happen!!! Please leave a comment or DM me!! 


	22. Chapter 22

#  Part 3: Chapter 22

AN: Thank you for your comments! Sending love to Cowboy62, La Phoenix, and AnnaBurton5 on FF, and to Hshshshshshwh, anon, Katara99x, and supergirrl on AO3! I appreciate you taking time out of your day to encourage my writing! 

“She who could bind you

Could bind fire to a wall;

She who could hold you

Could hold a waterfall;

She who could keep you

Could keep the wind from blowing

On a warm spring night

With a low moon glowing.”

_ -Sara Teasdale, “She Who Could Bind You” _

* * *

Zuko raced through the streets of Szenton, feeling blood soak through his bandages. Townspeople stared at him, Katara’s blanket lost somewhere in the forest. He knew he was putting his life at risk without a disguise, but he needed to find Aang and the others as quickly as possible. 

As he approached the main hall, he saw Sho-ren Chengu, the leader of Szeton, hurrying toward him. 

“Fire Lord Zuko! You’re alive! Please, Sire, let me have the town physician look at you.”

He waved her aside. “I need to see Avatar Aang. Where is he?”

“He and the others are out looking for you, Sire. I will dispatch messengers to alert them to your return.” She hurried him inside the stone walls of the main hall. Despite himself, Zuko relaxed slightly when he was no longer exposed to the town. Whoever had tried to kill him was still out there. 

#  . . . . .

The nurse who Sho-ren Chengu sent to him was quiet as she changed his bandages. When she used a wet towel to clean the blood, he gritted his teeth against the pain. Katara— Zya?— had not been quite as gentle, but her touch had been more soothing than a stranger’s. Maybe deep down he had recognized her before he consciously knew it was her, he thought as the nurse tightly wound bandages to hold his arm immobile against his chest.

Once his shoulder had clean bandages and the nurse had bowed and left, Zuko tapped his foot restlessly. Despite what he had seen in the forest, his mind kept drifting back to Katara. She was here. Or at least she had been. Who knows if she’d stay now that he knew she was here. 

After a few hours, when Zuko felt his patience as thin as a bubble that might pop, the heavy wood doors of the main hall burst open. 

“Zuko!” His friends scrambled through the doorway to get to him. 

“Where have you been?” Toph demanded. 

“We thought you were dead!” Sokka added. 

“How’d you escape?” Aang asked. 

Zuko laughed, despite the dire situation they were all in. In the months and years since he had pushed them out of his life, they had never wavered in their friendship to him. 

“Look, what happened to me isn’t important right now. There’s something I need to tell you. You know how the village was destroyed by arsonists?” When they all nodded, he continued. “And everyone blamed me, since the village apparently was full of supporters of the Glass Triangle?” More nods. “Who benefits most from turning public opinion against me?”

“Your enemies,” Toph replied. 

“Right. And who are my enemies?”

Suki gasped. “The Glass Triangle set fire to the village.”

Sokka whipped around to face her. “They did what now?”

Suki waved her hands. “Don’t you see? The Glass Triangle framed Zuko for the destruction of the village! They turned against their own supporters in order to make Zuko look bad. It was a publicity stunt.”

“Those villagers weren’t lying though. They are all genuinely distraught about the village,” Toph pointed out.

“Maybe it was a different sect of the Glass Triangle that came in,” Zuko said. “Maybe they were getting orders from higher up. Like from —”

“—from the Glass Priestess.”

A voice from the doorway startled them all. Zuko looked up and saw  Sho-ren Chengu bowing in the doorway. “Apologies for interrupting, Sire. Someone requests your audience.”

“Who is it?” Zuko asked, his stomach dropping like a stone. 

“The Glass Priestess, Sire. She will only speak to you. Alone.” 

Zuko exchanged a look with Aang. He shook his bald head slightly, as if telling Zuko it was a bad idea. Despite this warning, Zuko awkwardly pushed himself to his feet, trying not to lose his balance. The nurse had bandaged it so tightly he couldn’t move his arm. 

“I’ll meet with her.” He turned to his friends. “Would you please give me some privacy?”

“I’m sorry, Sire, but the Glass Priestess wishes to meet with you in a more private place,” Sho-ren Chengu said. “I would welcome you to my own home to meet with her.”

Zuko could hear Mai’s voice in his head saying,  _ Who does this woman think she is, ordering around the Fire Lord _ , but he pushed past this condescension. He would do anything to restore peace to his nation. 

As he followed Sho-ren Chengu out the door, he heard Aang say “Zuko, wait!” He turned and realized he was now eye-to-eye with the kid he had once hunted all over the world. No, Aang was no longer a kid. He was a grown man, a fully-fledged Avatar. A father, a friend. 

Aang held out his arm. “We’ll be here if you need us,” he said. Zuko grasped his arm below the elbow. 

“I know, Aang.” Letting go of Aang, he turned and followed Sho-ren Chengu. 

#  . . . . .

Sho-ren Chengu led him to a modestly sized home a few streets away from the town hall. Next to the city leader, Zuko stood tall, hoping a straight back would disguise the fear he felt inside. As Sho-ren Chengu opened the door to her home and ushered him inside, dread descended on Zuko like a stormcloud.  _ Have I just made the worst mistake of my life? _ he thought as he entered the house. He walked into a neatly furnished living room. By the far wall, a group of women in matching white robes and masks knelt on square pillows. The eeriness of so many identical people tugged at Zuko’s survival instinct.  _ Something is wrong, you need to get out!  _ A voice screamed at him. 

Instead, Zuko sat on a floor pillow across from the group of women. Sho-ren Chengu bowed and said, “Please make yourself comfortable. I will wait in the dining room so you may have some privacy.”

Once she left, Zuko glanced at each impassive mask. The masks were white, patterned with small black stars that flickered as they caught the light. They were connected to black headscarves that trailed over each woman’s head and past her shoulders. Every inch of skin was covered. 

Zuko cleared his throat, unsure how to begin negotiations. 

“I was told I would be meeting with one person, the Glass Priestess.”

“You are meeting with me, Fire Lord,” a muffled voice said. Zuko had no idea which one of the women had spoken. “I simply do not prefer the spotlight as you do.” 

Zuko remembered how Katara had said the same thing earlier that day. “I understand,” he said slowly. “What do you want? Why did you set the village on fire?”

The voice of a dozen bodies spoke again. “I did not set the fire, Fire Lord. You did. You and your family have burned the people of this nation for over a hundred years. It is time your bloodline paid the ultimate price.”

“And I guess you would take the throne?” Zuko said sardonically. “I fought to bring peace to the world again. I fought my own sister, my own father.” 

“Yet the war goes on for many,” the faceless voice said. “The citizens of the Fire Nation are expected to kowtow to other nations, are forced to submit to a life of slavery to lesser benders.”

“Wait a minute, I thought the Glass Triangle was all about maintaining the peace of the three nations,” Zuko said. 

The voice laughed, a throaty chuckle that sounded muffled under layers of fabric. “No, Fire Lord. You are still in the dark. We wish to bring back the glory of the Fire Nation, the most powerful nation in the world even before the return of Sozin’s Comet. We refuse to submit to lesser nations. The Triangle has a point—” Each woman raised her hands and made a triangle with her index fingers and thumbs. “An apex, the highest and greatest nation. The Triangle is glass, because it is invisible, omnipresent, ubiquisent. It was, is, and forever will be.”

Zuko stood awkwardly. His balance was off with his arm bandaged tightly against his chest. “This is not the way back to peace. The Fire Nation will never again rule over other nations. And someday the Air Nomads will be back.”

The Glass Priestess, hidden among the twelve figures, laughed her throaty chuckle. “The line of Sozin is weak. A greater family would have brought the world to peace, would have conquered Ba Sing Se and established the Fire Nation at the apex of the triangle. A greater family would not have relied on the destruction of the Air Nomads.” 

Zuko’s free hand curled into a fist, and as the masked woman spoke, his fist burst into fire. “Show yourself! We’re going to end this! Now!” 

The twelve figures rose, their blank masked eyes staring at him. “Step outside, Fire Lord,” they all said simultaneously. When he didn’t move, the one closest to the wall stepped forward and moved past him. The others stepped into line and followed, moving past him and through Sho-ren Chengu’s house. When the last one passed, Zuko lowered his fist and followed slowly, wondering if they all meant to fight him. Was it courtesy to Sho-ren Chengu to leave her home instead of destroying it in a fight? 

When Zuko stepped outside behind the twelve masked women, his stomach dropped. There, in the street outside Sho-ren Chengu’s home, two dozen or more children knelt, armed men and women with black armbands holding knives and katanas to the children’s throats. The children were dressed in a range of school uniforms and brown work clothes, likely both children of Szenton and refugees. Most were openly sobbing, and their cries pierced Zuko like a thousand arrows. 

“Surrender, Fire Lord,” the twelve masked women said. “You can’t save them all.”

* * *

AN: If you liked this chapter, drop a comment! If you hated it, drop a comment! Otherwise, I hope you (you reading this) are healthy and happy and taking time to appreciate yourself. 


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